Gert's Secret

[2004, 60 min.] Distributed by Filmmakers, Inc. What is the secret of finding happiness in the context of a long-term care facility. The narrator of the documentary points to Gert, a woman that has lived in the Tony Stacey Centre for Veteran's Care in Toronto for 15 years and is now 101. The video portrays the caregiving relationship between Gert and her daughter Norma, a woman in her 70s.

Introduction

Pre-Viewing Notes and Activities

Summary of Scenes

1. The first three minutes introduce us to life in the nursing home. NARRATOR: “When most people think of nursing homes, they think of grim gray nightmarish institutions. This place is not one of them.” Cut to the administrator chatting with resident in the hallway. NARRATOR: “This is a nice home, with nice people on staff. “ Woman keeps moving around the rooms and chatting up the residents. NARRATOR: “Trouble is, almost nobody wants to be here.” Then Ave Burgess, the administrator, speaks on camera about her own experience of her mother not wanting to be “dumped” in a nursing home.
2. NARRATOR:”It’s a universal dread—that our children will abandon us and put us at the mercy of uncaring strangers. Expressionistic filming, with sounds of moaning residents, shows the dark side of the nursing home. NARRATOR: “And this is one of the nice homes. If even the good ones inspire such fear, how can anyone survive?”
3. Image of Gert—moving along in her wheel chair. Upbeat music. She is Gert Stevenson at 101. NARRATOR: “She may be the happiest person in the home.” Gert loves to go to the races. She is loaded into the van and off they go—“Off to the races.” She laughs about her winnings. She returns after dinner. It is dark. NARRATOR:”Most of the other residents are fast asleep.” Her laughter dominates in all of the scenes of her so far.
4. Back to life in the nursing home. NARRATOR: “Many here almost seem to sleep their lives away. But she has retained her spark. After 16 years here, she seems to have found the secret to a good life.” She sits in the commons room and talks abbut her bingo winnings.
5. Director of recreation staff says, “They’re not here because they want to be, but because they have to be.” Almost all of the residents are just sitting around , but not Gert. “You can’t sit around here forever,” she says. NARRATOR: “It’s easy to forget how old she is.” Gert laughs. We meet her daughter, Norma, and Norma’s husband. Norma is 70. Gert talks about her two children—twins—one a boy and the other a girl (now Norma).
6. The narrator provides some context on her age by talking about how much of the world she has seen since she was born. She even remembers the sinking of the Ttitanic.
7. Back to the home (10.00). NARRATOR: “Most of the residents are not going anywhere. This nursing home will be their last stop in life.” An old man sits in his wheelchair in the hallway. He has a sling over one arm. NARRATOR: “Some refuse to accept this.” The old man, John McDonald, was captain of an oil tanker 10 years ago. Now he is working to recover from a stroke. He is determined that he is going to walk out of this nursing home someday.
8. Back to Gert. The Care Director talks to her. She laughs again—lovely to see. The Recreation Director says many residents blame their children for dumping them in the nursing home. Then we see Gert and Norma, as the latter helps her dress. “Gert is one of the lucky ones. Her daughter Norma has been looking after her for 50 years. She has 100% of burden of care. Gert was widowed at 48. Her daughter Norma was only 17. Gert moved in with Norma. She stayed for 37 years. When Gert moved in to the nursing home, it was a retirement home (in 1987). She was 86. Gert thinks of this place as her home. Norma says, “It was a lovely retirement home at that time. It’s a nursing home now.”
9. At 14.00. NARRATOR: “Having to live with dementia patients is a sore point at many nursing homes.” We see and hear moaning residents in the commons room. John McDonald, the man we met earlier, is clearly upset by the noise. The Recreation Director says, “They’re all mixed in it together. There’s no place to go to get away from it.” NARRATOR: “Gert has found a way to cope, as usual. . . . She has the vanity of a young girl.” We learn that Gert sometimes changes her clothes three times a day. We see her having her nails done.
10. She gets a new roommate (16.50). She is Maxine, a stroke victim. Gert has learned to live with many strangers. But she does not get too close. Norma says, “She’s never made a friend. They’ve never been her buddy. I think it’s deliberate. She won’t get too close to them—and then they won’t bother her. She tries to keep aloof.” A few months later Maxine died. Norma says, “This is God’s waiting room. I couldn’t tell you how many people have been in that bed.” The Recreation Director backs up Norma’s words by saying that Gert does not become close to the roommates.
11. The director (off-screen) asks Norma how Gert has managed to survive so long? Norma says, “Just plain stubbornness. Nothing’s going to beat me.” We see Gert complaining abou the soup. Grandson: “”She’s been fairly feisty all her life.” She complains to the nursing station. We see her complaining to Norma about another problem. Norma tells her to say the same thing to the people at the nursing station.
12. At 20.10 Gert’s grandson says, “You just don’t disagree with Gertie. You don’t want to get on her bad side. NARRATOR: “It does not pay to be meek in a place with so many scrappy residents.” Then we see the march down to the dining room, and as the mass of residents narrows, altercations flare up. The Recreation Director says, “They’re all mean to each other. It’s like a stampede. Don’t get in the way of the wheelchairs.” The residents snip at each other, push on other people’s chairs, and sometimes, according to the Recreation Director, even strike out at each other. The footage shows several altercations. Even Gert gets involved. Her grandson says, “It’s her wheelchair and it’s her hallway, and don’t you get in front of her.” He reports that she once threatened someone with her knitting needles. The staff had to take the needles away from her.
13. Norma talks about her mother’s situation (23.00). The grandson notes that his mother (Norma) has some guilt about putting Mom in the nursing home. But Norma denies this point. Several shots show Norma going about the business of caregiving for her mother. The administrator says, “I don’t know how anybody in here without somebody on the outside can really survive. You’ve got to have somebody.” She is aware that several people in this facility have “no one in their corner.” “You’ve got to have somebody,” she says.
14. Transitional shots showing the loneliness of the abandoned people in this home. Norma getting her mother dressed for an outing. “We just didn’t dump her. And so many are dumped.” The administrator comforts some of the residents in their rooms. Then she talks about her role, and the nursing home’s role, in taking care of residents all through the end of their lives. “Don’t get me crying,” she says. It is evident that she really believes in what she is doing.
15. Gert’s 102 nd birthday party (27.20). The narrator notes that Gert can walk, but she uses a wheelchair, and ambulates by pulling the chair along with her feet motion, because she fears falling. The Recreation Director says, ““She has always been an independent person. Gert still tries to stand up in the wheel chair.” She is active, and she keeps moving!
16. But then there is a shift in tone as we learn that Gert fell. We see her lying in bed. NARRATOR: “It could mean the end of her independence.” Now we see her being helped out of the wheelchair, and she is in pain. For the first time Gert looks frail, vulnerable, and fearful. Norma says Mom told her, “Once you get into a wheelchair, you never get out.” Now the images emphasize her loneliness. Norma says, “Now she must rely on others to help her move about.” NARRATOR: “Now she must rely on others to help her move.” Scenes show a CNA helping her get into bed. Gert looks confused and anxious. NARRATOR: “It’s a devastating blow to a proud woman.”
17. She complains (31.20) about being told to do this and do that. But she reserves her rage for the times the staff person puts up the side rails of the bed—leaving her in virtual imprisonment. She says it makes her feel as if she is in a “rat trap.” She hates those bars. “I can’t stand this thing. It drives me nuts.”
18. NARRATOR: “Since her fall she’s changing. And she has acquired a new roommate—with dementia!” Another scene shows a demented woman moaning in the commons area, and several of the residents, including John McDonald, grimace and complain under the stress. She is afraid of her roommate—especially when the woman stands behind her in the room. The Recreation Director explains the fears that residents have of being injured by a demented resident. “She scares me,” Gert says. “I have no right whatsever to be coupled with that person.” The Recreation Director ays,” They are extremely intolerant of each other.”
19. We are watching (35.40) a diifferent Gert. NARRATOR: “Gert is feeling trapped.” She says she would prefer to live with Norma. She quotes another woman who said, “If I wanted to live in hell, I would expect to be in hell—but not living with her!” Norma tells her to complain. More sad images of her. Norma admits that it is hard for Mom: “But I cannot handle her anymore.” The grandson says that he can’t imagine how Mom has done it for over 50 years.
20. Background on Norma’s story. She was never close to her mother. But she made a deathbed promise to her father. Norma says, “He said, ‘I want you to promise to stay.’ “ So she has kept that promise. We see Mom doing more caregiving. NARRATOR: “Most people have no idea of their history. To the outside world, their relationship seems ideal.” The administrator says, “Obviously, something worked very well. It had to be the love and respect.” Norma relates that she cooked the meals, and afterwards Gert was “out the door.” The administrator believes that Gert was the kind of woman who always cooked the meals. The grandson admits that he never saw her lift a finger in the kitchen. But she would sit across the room and complain that Norma was not doing things right.
21. The grandson sums up the dilemma Norma finds herself in. The last several years of caregiving have left her exhausted. She is “emotionally spent.” Norma says, “I’m an old lady myself. I’m wondering what I’m going to do. I don’t have a daughter. It’s not fair to me, and it’s not fair to my husband.” Again we see Norma caregiving and adapting to Gert’s fussiness. Gert admits she would like to live with Norma. “But there’s now way. “I told her, ‘I’m not a rope around your neck, Norma.’ ” But it seems obvious she is.
22. At 41.40 Gert talks articulately about the “awful emptiness” of this place—she talks about wanting just to get out and about once in a while. “I know I have to live here.” And this place? She says that it is “nothing like home.” Then she says, “Sometimes you wonder why you keep on living this way.” Her gestures and expressions are telling in this scene. She is distraught and yet articulate—and still a tad defiant. She admits that she feels lonely sometimes.
23. NARRATOR: “She’s always had good relations with the staff—until now. She complains to the director about how she is treated her. “It’s beyond all reason.” She resists being told what to do and when to do it. She complains the way she is managed through the day. “What a hell of a life? No way.” She buzzes that buzzer. “Come on! Come on! Enough’s enough.” She complains about being awakened according to the staff’s schedule. Norma admits, “To be helpless was the wrong thing for my mother.” The grandson notes she did not recognize him on his last visit. Norma says, “She can’t dress herself anymore. When she is asleep, we see an unusual tracking shot, as the camera moves in close-up range along her body. The effect is of examining the old person’s body up close—wrinkled skin everywhere. Later, she talks to the director (as always, he is off-camera). “When you bed sometimes, you wonder—when you wake up in the morning—if you’re going to be alive.” (At 47.50) She coughs, and she puts her head down.
24. Later in the commons room, a staff person is playing music, and the other residents are paying attention—except for Gert, who is sleeping. Scenes of Gert sleeping—hard to believe that’s Gert. Norma says she prays that someday she will die in her sleep—that would be a merciful ending. The administrator wakes her up—but she looks rough. She pulls herself down the hallway. She coughs. She seems confused, anxious. She seems to be talking to herself.
25. Later, at night, more transitional shots in the home. A CNA puts her to bed. The Recreation Director (50.43) is shown with photos of residents that died in the nursing home. Having these photos are meaningful to her. “This has been my life for 10 years.” She says, “I don’t want to forget them.” She tells a few stories. “So many people, so many memories. After all, you really are their family for the last years of their lives. And you see more of them than their families do.”
26. The retirement head for the Recreation Director. She stands and smiles at the applause. Now Norma takes her out for a ride to see her new condo (53.33). She has survived—two bad falls—and she came back from them. She thought she knew the day she was going to die—but she was wrong. NARRATOR: “Then a remarkable thing happened. She seemed to revive. She is in the van on the drive—and she does look good. Norma takes her past her old home. Norma quotes the doctor, who said, “She’s one tough old broad.” She looks lovely in her purple coat and wool hat. Norma and her husband sum it all up. He says that not many women have their mother living when they turn 73. And Norma says, “I keep telling her—‘I’m an old lady myself.’”
27. Gert’s 103 rd birthday (at 57.50) and she looks good. More smiling and laughing. She blows out the three candles. Five people stand around her table. She looks up and rolls her eyes.

Discussion Questions and Sample Worksheet

Text of The Great Circle of Life: A Resource Guide to Films and Videos on Aging, copyright © 1987, 1999, 2005, Robert E. Yahnke. All photographs copyrighted by Robert E. Yahnke.  All rights reserved.  Contact author for permission to copy photographs or reprint portions of text.

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