How Sharon Got Her Shuffle

Sharon shuffles and Sharon can shake it.

When I first met Colorado native, Kansas resident Sharon Rose Gray in October 2007, Sharon needed knee replacements. She worked 4 days a week as the evening cook for Pleasant View Home in Inman, KS where I had just been employed to be the evening cook’s souse chef of sorts. After years as a farmer’s wife in Colorado and Kansas and some time working as a teacher’s aide in Hutchinson, KS and at the egg factory in Buhler, KS. Sharon had come to the nursing home where her husband, Al Gray, was receiving care. Even after Al was moved to a smaller facility in McPherson, KS, Sharon continued to work as a member of the Dietary staff at PVH. Sharon was recovering from surgery during the winter months of 2007 and 2008 that I passed working overtime hours.

There is a long-standing joke with the evening kitchen crew at PVH that one of the young men who works as an evening dishwasher is Sharon’s boyfriend. Like many young dishwashers who occasionally forget important tasks, Justin might have missed filling some water glasses before supper or he may have poked holes in the cookies so they would fit in the smaller tulip bowls, but Sharon could not be bothered by these few mistakes. Instead, Justin was given the role of the firstborn son, admired and appreciated, and not without due cause.

Sharon, Justin and I all have late winter birthdays, and so it was that in March 2008 as we were celebrating that Sharon returned to PVH after her recovery. There were many evenings that month where the three of us worked together, finishing early most days, and passed the last fifteen minutes of our shift talking. This was when I got to hear some of the stories that revealed how Sharon got her shuffle.

Al Gray was not only a farmer, but also a commercial interior decorator. Sharon’s bathroom at their home in Colorado Springs where all five of their children were born was drab until Al knocked out some ceiling for a sky-light and hung a fern to catch the sun’s rays. The border he used was velvet, cut-outs of carriages, gentlemen and ladies with parasols. Sharon’s fireplace was set in a wall of moss-covered volcanic rock, which she watered to keep green, that stood between the living and dining rooms. The other walls were painted green and her curtains were banana yellow. They moved when Al was commissioned to redecorate the dining area of the hospital in Garden City, KS.

After a few moves in Kansas for Al’s work, the Gray family settled on a farm six miles east of Buhler. They came with two U-Hauls, one packed with their belongings and the other set up like Noah’s Ark: goats, cows, chickens and cats carefully transported across state to their new home.

All five kids grew up and moved out; grandchildren popped into the family; precious farm animals and pets came and went with the years. Sharon and Al grew older together, knees and joints weakening, smiles wrinkling the corners of their eyes deeper, their work on the farm more limited.

Organ failure is a daunting medical concern. When Al experienced trouble with his liver and pancreas after he and Sharon had moved into town, giving up the farm, the cause remained hidden for quite some time. Al began to have mysterious attacks. While under observation at the Kansas University Medical Center, doctors labored to discover the underlying threat. Finally a rare condition, perhaps caused by the initial failure of Al’s pancreas, was revealed as the source of Al’s attacks.

Sharon continued to work and was quickly transformed into Al’s full-time caretaker. The Grays moved into a more accessible home, a duplex on the west side of Buhler, where Al could function in a wheelchair. Eventually Sharon decided to seek care for Al outside of her home so that she could work.

After Sharon recovered from her knee-replacement surgeries and returned to the kitchen in Inman, there were plenty of difficult afternoons. The aches and pains do not fade out completely. Rehabilitation is a time-consuming process, time that is not usually able to be spared. But that did not stop Sharon from shaking it.

Sharon and I would get a tune in our brains and go with it, releasing all of our pent-up energy in nonsensical lyrics and silly, offbeat grooves. The chicken pot pie always came out better on the nights we let loose. Some evenings Sharon would go to visit Al in McPherson after finishing work. Nearly every day she had off she was there, too.

Sharon told me Al was having eye surgery one Monday in August to see about removing some cataracts. Most of Al’s motor-functioning had shut down, and he had been without vision for two years. When the surgery was successful and Al was able to see Sharon for the first time in two years, one of his first requests was for a dance.

That week Al was able to see his grandchildren he had never seen because he had lost his sight before they had been born. One of the greatest delights was to see his only son with his new wife, whom he had married the year before when he had no vision.

Sharon shuffles, but Sharon can really shake it. I am sure Al would agree.

Sharon continues to live in Buhler, next door to one of her daughters and three of her grandchildren, and work in Inman, preparing the evening meal for 125 rest home residents at least four nights a week. Her beloved Al passed away in the fall of 2008. Sharon now travels to Hutchinson to line dance on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Elmdale Recreation Center.