My mom had just gotten back from the beauty parlor when we arrived at the the Friendly Home. We told her her hair looked good and she asked what color it was. Peggi came up with a round about answer that included the word “grey.” My mom made a face and we told her we were going grey too. She said,”I want to go home with you.” I told her, that would be nice” and then held her hand and tried to change the subject. I said, “I like your ring. Is that your wedding ring?” she said someone gave it to her. I didn’t catch the name but it wasn’t my father. I asked if it was a long time ago and she said no.
We wheeled her down to the sun room and played catch with an inflated baseball. The ball was slighter bigger than a basketball. My mom is good at catch, she always was, and she is competitive too, mostly with herself. She would say, “I should have caught that when it was really my bad throw. We got her to stand up a few times because her seat was sore and then it was time for lunch so we wheeled down the hall into the dining room. Virginia, her regular table-mate had already begun eating her soup. She had a small pile of semi-chewed clams on the table. She pulled one out of her mouth and asked, “What is this?” I said, “That’s a clam” and she said, “Oh.” She added it to the pile.
We said hi to the other table-mates. Sandy never says hi back but Mary, at the end of the table, said hello. The staff served clam chowder to my mom along with a chocolate shake, probably an Ensure product. My mom pointed to the soup and said, “I don’t like that” but she tried a few spoonfuls anyway and when she seemed engrossed in her lunch we slipped away.
2 Comments
When are you going go collect all these into a look book, Paul? Vignettes… vignettes. Check out Milosz’ Road Side Dog or even his ABC’s. Both beautiful examples of the form
This is so sad. Devastating. 🙁