The other week I had to speak with the (quick-speaking) (Vietnamese-American) nurse about one (older) (male) resident who I rather like, and she was like, "He's not right in the head," and she then told me that back when he first arrived and women would help him, he asked a woman who was giving him a shower to wash down by his private parts.
"She said no, you can reach, and wouldn't," the nurse told me in a low voice and very seriously, and she pursed her lips in disapproval.
The next time I saw him afterwards, I felt weird around him, to think that he'd do that to a woman.
I also thought of that the next time his wife came to visit, and they were there together as a normal couple.
It really is life, to project total goodness on to old people and then to have reality contradict your (condescending?) infantilization. Just because they're old doesn't mean they're not a mixed bag of weirdness and power and hidden places.
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