Meal Recipient Stories

Three vintage televisions simultaneously blare the same movie into the open apartment door. “It’s always open; I can’t hear the doorbell”, explains 88 year-old Elaine. The clutter in her apartment makes it difficult to navigate. Pieces of her life’s history — a hat collection, scripts, art and yellowed magazines-are piled everywhere.Elaine regales with tales about how she cooked for 35 actors in a Baltimore theater company, how she earned her nickname, “The Body”, in her college sorority, how she took up etching and was asked to show her work in a Greenwich Village art gallery. Elaine’s stories are endless, each peppered with comments that can only come from someone who has lived life fully.

Her cherished memories keep her going now. She no longer has a husband, and never had children of her own. She relies on her 91 year-old best friend to take her to and from doctors’ appointments. Two years ago, she fell coming out of the Canal Street Subway Station.

The fall led to hip surgery and her walking has deteriorated ever since. She now has neuropathy in both feet. The lost nerve sensation has left her unable to walk on her own. “My big problem is balance. I’m afraid of tripping,” Elaine reluctantly admits. Once she was a fitness instructor at Woodstock and an avid tennis player.

Her walls are covered with pictures of old friends, family, shows she’s worked on and reminiscences of her many modeling campaigns. She has outlived almost all those pictured. Now, most of her time is spent alone. “I don’t get many visitors. There is no place to sit.”

But when our deliverer arrives with her meal each day, Elaine somehow manages to find a place for her guest to sit… and she always entertains them with a colorful story from her vibrant life.

Citymeals’ visits not only provide this fragile woman with healthy food, they also help keep her spirit alive. And with your support, people like Elaine will always have this desperately needed lifeline.