Symbiotic

Julie had been forging Barbara’s signature for a few years now. Julie was Barb’s 24-hour caregiver. Barb was ninety-one years old, blind, and had been in and out of the hospital for the last five years. Julie was a godsend, her closest companion, and in Barbara’s opinion, also a tyrant. It was a love/hate relationship. She told her close friends about her concerns about Julie, and at the same time admitted how essential she was for her life, for her ability to remain home and out of the hospital. Barb hated the hospital; hated rehab; hated everywhere but home. She had lived here so long that she did not need to be able to see. She knew where everything was. The contours and corners of her home were etched in the inner map of her very active mind.

Julie had had a hard life and she enjoyed caring for Barbara. She enjoyed not having to live with her mother anymore, and she enjoyed buying things for Barbara. Things that would have been too expensive for her to buy for herself. And, her signature was an astonishing replica of Barbara’s former perfect penmanship. Barb and Julie’s relationship was interdependent. Barb had the resources. Julie now had the independence she craved.

This was all going along fine, until one day Barb’s financial adviser called to tell Barb that she was running out of money, a reality that Barb found difficult to imagine. Her financial advisor suggested that she sell her house to fund living someplace else and to continue paying for her caregiving. If she decided to do that, she could probably sustain her lifestyle for another couple of years.

Both Barb and Julie were terrified by this information. Barb called her lawyer and her siblings and made sure things were in order. Julie went on just as normal and decided that Barb’s financial planner was just being alarmist. She bought lovely food, cooked, and decorated the house beautifully, though Barb could no longer see the decoration and had begun to lose her interest in the food.

Then, one morning, Barb got up as usual with her walker and went to her chair for her morning prayers. When she was done with her recitation, she talked silently to her God, raised her head to call for Julie to come in, and in the next moment died quietly, and as she wished to in her own home.

Within a day, Barb’s family arrived and took over. Julie lost her primary support, her friend, and her income. Now, she could only sign her own name, and she hated that.

— DanielSouthGate