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Amateur Hour and Grace: What an Unlikely Friendship Taught Me About Love and Caregiving
- Elaine Williams
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
My unlikely friendship with Sylvia.
I stepped into the living room and texted my “boss”, Judy. Your mom just told me to leave, that she didn’t need me, didn’t know why I was here.
Judy texted me back: She does this when you’re new. Just wait a few minutes and go back in. She won’t remember. Huh?
My friend asked me to cover her shift, which meant to come over to this beautiful house with a separate apartment in Montclair, NJ, and to make tea and lunch and “sit” with this woman named Sylvia because her daughter, Judy, had a big job in NYC and was gone for long stretches of time.
Another day I was there, (I became the substitute sitter), Sylvia said: “Are you always this peppy?” (in a very exasperated way). I said, “Oh, I can take it down a notch.”
Slowly, we got used to each other. We would sit and read quietly together.
She started to tell me stories from her life. Her parents had both been orphans from Poland who had landed in the Bronx. Her father ran a shoe factory and would come home covered in chemicals. Sylvia had grown up with 2 older sisters and one younger brother. Her parents had paid for her brother to go to college, but not the girls.
I had never known anyone like Sylvia before. She was the most practical, no-nonsense person I’d ever hung out with. Slowly, I started sharing stories from my very different life, growing up in TX, performing in theatre and film, being in recovery from addictions and assaults, having many fiascos with many men.
I started trying to make her laugh. She had a great laugh and a radiant smile.
She had met her husband, Bob, at a camp in the Catskills when she was 18.
She raised 3 kids, did all the cooking and cleaning, and put herself through night school when Bob came home from work. Her dream was to become a scientist, and she did. She had many articles published, and eventually made more money than her husband did. She designed and built their house in Vermont.
When COVID started, her daughter called and said, “We want you to come every day. We don’t want the other sitters coming and going, but of course, you’ll have to be super careful not to bring anything to her.” I felt honored, and I was happy for the extra money because I was unsure of what would happen with my tenants and my clients because of the pandemic.
I cancelled my gym membership and my yoga studio. We sat on her back porch and looked at the gorgeous oak trees and the flowers that Sylvia’s son-in-law had planted for her around her deck. I took her on adventures to local gardens, farm stands to buy fresh produce, and to the Bronx to have lunch with her 91-year-old friend, Ethel, in Little Italy. We watched movies when I stayed over if her daughter was out of town.
We watched Joe Biden get sworn in. We watched Jan 6th happen. I brought her pastrami sandwiches and mortadella ham, which she ate up. In March of 2021, she had a 2nd stroke. Her daughter Judy asked if I could help more. I started doing 12-hour shifts for 2 weeks until we could get more help. I was untrained, but I did my best. I had never thought that I would be capable of changing someone’s diaper or changing a bandage with lots of blood. But I did.
I’d say: “Oh, Sylvia, you know it’s amateur hour here, but we’re in this together.”
We’d laugh together at my inexperience.
I learned that when you love someone, you become capable of greater things. As she declined, her daughter and I worked together to change her, and all three of us would laugh: it’s amateur hour. The hospice nurses were so much more efficient. They told me that Sylvia talked about me when I wasn’t there.
Eventually, Sylvia needed more and more care, and we decided that it was time for me to step down. I asked if I could still come visit. The last time I saw her, I brought vanilla creme soda for her. She lifted her head and gave me the biggest smile.
At her Zoom memorial, all of her kids talked about how she’d always been there for them and how proud they were of her academic and professional accomplishments. Many friends and family members spoke of how she’d been a champion for them, always encouraging them to “go for it”. I miss her daily. I have two of her paintings that I treasure. She taught me so much.
I was raised by two very impractical, dramatic mothers. She showed me an entirely different way.
One of my favorite Sylvia memories was when she was on the phone with her older sister, who was a successful artist on the West Coast. They were talking about their assistants. She said, “Oh, you gotta get a comedian. Elaine’s the best, and she makes me laugh!”
Sylvia, you made me laugh, too.
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