Thursday, May 7

someday sweetie, this could be us...

True story, only names have been changed:

Christine and Matteo are in their 80s and have spent their many years together living in a small Italian village. Two weeks ago, Christine and Matteo were having a quiet evening at home. Christine was cleaning up in the kitchen while Matteo was in the other room watching TV. It was a typical evening until Christine slipped on some water that had been splashed on the floor while she cleaned.

The sudden fall found Christine on the floor, unable to move. She started yelling for her husband. She yelled and then screamed for him to come help her, but there was no response from the other room. He had the TV on so loud that he couldn't hear her. She continued to scream so loudly that the staff in the restaurant three floors down came out into the alley to see what was going on. She screamed down to them from her kitchen floor that she had fallen and was unable to move. She instructed them to go to the bakery that she and her husband owned and get the keys for her house so they could come up and help her.

A few men from the restaurant did so. They ran up the stairs and found Christine on the floor in the kitchen. They helped her up and carried her into her bedroom. They called for the ambulance. Once the ambulance had been called, Christine asked them if they could please go and tell Matteo what had happened!

Matteo had been watching TV the entire time and hadn't heard anything. Obviously. when he found out what his wife had been going through, he felt absolutely horrible.

Christine is back home and recovering from a broken hip. Because of her injuries, she and Matteo are sleeping in different rooms, but every night Matteo goes to sleep with a string tied around his wrist that passes over the wall between them and rests on Christine's bedside table so that she can pull him to attention if she should need him.

5 comments:

  1. Both sad and sweet. As a person with a hearing impairment, I feel for the guy who couldn't hear. How frustrating to know all that went on and he was oblivious.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Poor darlings...really
    Special prayer for you today at my place....protection from the things the prayer mentions...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Poignient!
    Aloha Christine

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have the same reaction. These are people I love. Because we know them so well we were able to laugh and be concerned at the same time. Thanks for the prayers as it's chilling how pointed in this direction we may be. My bones are already frail and M already is going deaf.
    Aloha ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yikes... I can't let Greg read this. I have a hearing problem and definitely tend to turn the TV up. But I'm always asking him where he is going and what he is doing and wondering about him, so I hope the TV is never a focus for me that much. Thanks for bringing this to reality and keep me motivated to check on him, just for the sake of knowing he is well.

    ReplyDelete

...and you may ask yourself, well...how did I get here?