Verna

Personality Profile -
Verna
Verna is one of my aides. She works the 11PM-7AM shift. I work with her alot, because she is among the crew that puts me to bed at night and is also amember of the crew that gets me up in the AM.

An older, thin woman, Verna is good-hearted and honest and tries her hardest - which is sort of what makes her so gently funny. Because, in a way, Verna is sort of really out of it. Her conciousness is usually out looping around the universe somewhere. She's has a laid-back, cool personality, but cares adamently about the well-being of her charges. It's just that, a lot of the time, she has no idea what it is that they actually need.

One of the unique things about her is the way she communicates. She is from Jamaica, and speaks an "island" English which is difficult to understand. As a matter of fact, though she may talk and talk, no one ever has the slightest idea what she is saying. Which she seems to just take calmly in stride...!

Once she gets a correct phrase in her head, though, she uses it over and over, with appropriate variations. For instance, the crew uses a lift machine to lift me out of the wheelchair and put me in bed. Once they lower me to the bed, Verna always says, "good landing!" One day they let me loose too early, though, and I fell to the bed from about two feet up. As I lay there, shocked and suprised, Verna looked down at me, and "crash landing", she calmly said.

Although Verna doesn't look or act old, Joey, a fellow on her shift tells me that she is in her 60's. She has an afro wig with long rings of black curls. Joey says he has seen her without her wig, and she has short, gray hair.