I’ve been at San Rafael Nursing Home for eleven years and my three children never came to see me — until a new nurse checked my file and discovered something horrific

My name is Elvira Monsalve, I am 82 years old and I have been locked up in the San Rafael nursing home, on the outskirts of Villavicencio, for eleven years, three months and fourteen days.

No one visits me. No one calls. No one asks for me.

Sundays are the worst. From seven in the morning I put on the blue floral dress that I brought from home, I comb my hair with the tortoiseshell comb that my husband Aureliano gave me before he died, and I sit on the wicker chair in front of the window that overlooks the main gate.

I wait.

I am waiting for Ricardo, my eldest son. I’m waiting for Marta, the one in the middle. I wait for Julián, the youngest, the one who called me “pretty mommy” until I was thirty.

They never come.

Nurse Dora, who worked here for eight years, always told me the same thing while combing my hair: “Doña Elvira, forget it. Today’s children are like that. ungrateful.”

Eleven years thinking that my children had thrown me in the trash like a broken piece of furniture. Eleven years reviewing every memory, looking for the mistake that had cost me the love of my three children.

Until Yulieth arrived.

Yulieth is the new nurse. She is 26 years old, from Neiva, and arrived at the nursing home just three weeks ago to replace Dora.

Last Tuesday, while I was taking my blood pressure, he asked me:

“Doña Elvira, and your family?”

“I don’t have any, mija. Well, I have three children, but I haven’t seen them for eleven years. They abandoned me here.

That same afternoon, I saw her enter the office of the director, Mr. Efraín Cárdenas. They were locked up for almost an hour. I was in the hallway, pretending to knit, but I managed to hear pieces: “incomplete file”, “I’m going to report this”.

The next day, Yulieth came into my room at six in the morning. He locked the door. He sat on the edge of my bed and took my hands.

“Doña Elvira,” he told me, “her children did not abandon her.

I looked at her without understanding. I felt the room spin.

“How so, mija?” What is he saying?

Yulieth took out of her uniform pocket some folded papers. He opened them slowly.

“Your children have come. They have come many times.

“That can’t be,” I said. I’m here every day. I would have seen them.

“No, Doña Elvira. They come, but Don Efraín tells them that you don’t want to see them. That you asked not to be disturbed. That you disowned them since you arrived.

I felt like my air was running out.

“Here’s the log of visits,” Yulieth went on, showing me a sheet full of signatures. Ricardo Monsalve came in 2014, in 2015, in 2016 twice. Marta Monsalve came in 2017 with two small children. Julián came just eight months ago. They all signed. They were all turned away at the door.

I began to tremble. I grabbed Yulieth’s hands with all the strength I had left.

“But why?” Why would Don Efraín do that?

Yulieth looked down.

“Because the nursing home charges a very high monthly pension for you, Doña Elvira. It is paid by an account in his name, from the money that was left over from the sale of Aureliano’s farm. If you leave with your children, Don Efraín loses that money. It loses money with each elderly person they claim.

And that’s when I understood everything.

Eleven years. Eleven Christmases. Eleven birthdays. Eleven years of believing I was a discarded mother, when in fact my three children had come looking for me and lied to their faces.

“Yulieth,” I said, my voice breaking, “can you help me call them?”

She took out her cell phone.

“I called you last night, Doña Elvira. To the three. Ricardo cried on the phone like a child. Marta left Bogotá early this morning driving. Julián comes on a flight from Medellín.

Yulieth looked me in the eye.

“They’re coming today. All three. Before noon.

I looked at the clock on the wall. It was 6:47 in the morning.

I asked Yulieth for the blue floral dress. The tortoiseshell comb. To comb my hair like before.

At 11:20, I heard three cars brake at the gate. I heard voices. I heard my son Ricardo shout the name of Don Efraín with a rage that I had never heard him before.

And then I heard the footsteps running down the hallway. Three pairs of steps. The steps he had been waiting for eleven years.

The door to my room burst open.

And for the first time in eleven years, three months and fifteen days, I stopped being alone.