By Tom Dodge, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX – I read some very good news on the front page of the Waxahachie Daily Light on Monday, February 9th. The bookkeeper at the Renfro Heathcare Center in Waxahachie was arrested and arraigned on three counts of stealing money from residents' accounts. These thefts could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars, the story said.
This is good news because my mother lives there and I have suspected the bookkeeper of stealing her money for the past three years.
Medicaid patients are returned $45 a month for their personal needs. My mother gets $90 a month veterans' check in addition to her Social Security check. In the summer of 2000, I began asking the bookkeeper if I might view my mother's account. She will be sending out a statement, she always said. The statement did not come.
When I persisted in this matter, her face underwent a kind of Exorcist metamorphosis, like the possessed girl in that movie. Her features contorted and her eyes reddened and bulged. "That account is between me and your mother!" she gave me to know.
I asked who endorsed the government checks. When she told me my mother, I knew she had no idea who my mother was. My mother has Alzheimer's disease. She hasn't been able to sign her name in years. When I made the bookkeeper wise to this information, she continued her Exorcist imitation. So I left in a big hurry, before her head started spinning around.
After this I told everybody in an official position there what happened and what I suspected. Nothing was done. When I informed the administrator, I received in the mail a vague statement showing $600 in the account. It did not show money received or any expenses. I considered it bogus.
I have a character flaw that I deeply regret. I am afraid of women whose faces get all red and scrunched up like the Exorcist girl. Men I can handle. We exchange cuss words, punches, gunshots, whatever - no big deal. But Exorcist women start gurgling and getting all red-eyed and so forth and I'm like a prostrating dog.
So I tried to get my mother removed to another home but couldn't because her Alzheimer's was too far advanced. I went to visit her only at night when I could be reasonably sure I would not encounter the spinning-headed woman.
I'm a sorry low-down coward.
But the way I looked at it, my mother was being cared for. The facility is no worse than most others like it. In fact, I have had few complaints regarding her care. So, if the bookkeeper from hell is actually guilty as charged, I tolerated it as long as my mother's care was satisfactory. I rationalized it as a trade-off. And if the administrator was as afraid of this bookkeeper from hell as I was, then complaining further was futile anyway.
But one family member was not intimidated by gurgling, eye-bulging and head-spinning. Somebody went to the police and reported what was happening.
My greatest regret is not the loss of money. It is that fate denied me the joy of seeing the Exorcist woman led away in handcuffs. I would have loved to watch.
But I would have been careful to stay far out of hurling range.
Tom Dodge lives in Midlothian.