The Skeleton Key Essay

With Whom Do You Identify Most?
In the movie, “The Skeleton Key,” I identify most with Caroline Ellis who’s portrayed as an ambitious, energetic and caring caregiver. Furthermore, while working at a hospice facility: where people go to seek medical care for comfort in their last weeks or days of life; Caroline provides different levels of care to patients. Upon realizing how people become cold hearted and care less once a patient dies; eventually, they’re just a statistic; immediately, Caroline resigns from her job. As a result, she lands a caregiver position at a plantation home taking care of a Hoodoo stoke victim, while attending nursing school.
Throughout my life I’ve been ambitious, ebullient, determined and impatient when it came

to caring for a loved one. Although, taking care of my grandparents started when I was a young child, becoming a register nurse has always been a dream of mine. Eventually, in my later adult life, when my mother-in-law and best friend developed cancer, determined to be their main caregiver; because of the love, hurt and fear I seen in them, I sucked it up and jumped in head first. Sometimes you have to be strong willed and take a stand for others whenever they can’t. First chance they had, if ever given the opportunity, they’d done the same for me.
In the same manner, Caroline and I’ve both been in the same situations where we’ve worked in a medical facility, where patients were treated as if their caregiver could care less or were cold hearted.

I’ve sat and watched while patients asked for something and four hours later they were still waiting or asking again for something for pain. Once a patient passes away, they were just another statistic, less they had to deal with. Upon realizing this, I decided it was time to find a different job, so I too, resigned my position. I wanted to be with a company that put the patients’ needs above everything else. No, I wasn’t a registered nurse, but I was attending nursing school at the time, working for a local hospital. A patient lying in a hospital bed, I consider a friend or family member of my own, while I’m their

caregiver.
As a caregiver, you go above and beyond the call of duty when someone you love or care deeply for is suffering.

No matter the circumstances a patient that has: self-inflected, Hoodoo, an overdose, or a medical induced situation etc., a good caregiver will do the same for them as well. For example: hallucinations in the elderly is quite common; however, when we miss a loved one, no matter the age, sometimes our mind can cause us to see an image of our loved one that has passed away. Therefore, we can rationalize with our patients like I did with my grandfather, as well as Caroline did with Ben.
After talking with several friends and family members, that’ve watched “The Skeleton Key”; said that, “You’re always taking care of everyone and your motherly instincts, definitely remind us of Caroline Ellis.” Then asking, am I too motherly; they said “No, that’s Kelli, always has been, always will be. That’s make you Kelli, you’re a better person and will make Kelli the type of nurse she’s always dreamt of

being.”
Assumptions of friends and family members don’t bother me, they’re just words. Granted I can choose to listen or not to. However, it’s like advice, if I choose to listen and can grow from it and learn, great. It’s free advice, help someone and put it to use, just as Caroline did with Ben against Violet and Luke. If I choose not to listen, then nothing lost nothing gained, no one got hurt, consider it a conversation that just took place among friends.