Gray Area: The stranger who takes charge of your life

Ginnie is sitting like a statue in the lobby of a Sandy nursing home when Pattijean Sanchez breezes in, all good will and cheer and genuine concern.

"Do you like vanilla?" she asks the woman, who is blind, reaching to take her hand. "Smell this. I brought you some lotion."

Ginnie sniffs, then nods. "It's nice," she says. So Sanchez takes her hand and puts a little lotion on it, rubbing it gently into the fingers as she examines them to be sure the nails are trimmed, the cuticles smooth. Those are indicators of the kind of care Ginnie is getting, and Sanchez is vigilant about that.

"It's yours, a gift," she says with her Texas drawl, curling the woman's hand around the tube. "Have you had any company?"

She knows the answer — a perpetual "No" — but she still always asks, part hope and part small talk.

Pattijean Sanchez is the only regular visitor from "outside" for Ginnie — and for Mr. H and Mrs. C and a dozen or so others — for the simple

reason that they have no one else.

Perhaps they had no family left as they aged. Or maybe they were estranged from their children or siblings. They may have outlived friends, or perhaps they simply led private, solitary lives. Their stories are all different except for this one fact: They are now each wards of the state of Utah. Sanchez is one of a half-dozen deputy public guardians in the Office of Public Guardian, so it's her job to look after them, to guide the decisions they aren't competent to make for themselves, to see that they are clean and well-fed and cared for.

The day the Deseret News meets Sanchez to go on her rounds of area nursing homes, she's in her cubicle doing paperwork. A placard in front of her reads, "We are expected to keep an eye always on the deeper meaning and value of life." She borrowed it from her parish newsletter, and it now serves as one of her personal philosophies. Another is also posted: "Don't mess with Texas women."

Sanchez used to be a program compliance auditor who kept track of Medicaid waivers, but she decided she wanted to have a direct impact on someone's life, so when she saw an ad for a public guardian, she applied.

It's a "human relationship without trappings," she says of her connection to the people she is now responsible for, and in that way it's not so different from a lot of relationships built on need rather than on a shared history or shared interests, she says. Indeed, she often doesn't know the back story of the people she visits, and they are no longer capable of telling her about themselves.