“You tell that man that I’ve no more desire to speak with him than I would the devil himself!”
“You tell that man that I am very upset that he would come in here and interrupt this afternoon’s bingo game!”
“I mean, honestly!”
The administrator of
the nursing home looked at me nervously.
I looked back,
apologetic,
but undaunted.
“I just need information.”
“I need to know if she has any plans to go back home.”
“I need to know that if she does go home, she’ll have the proper equipment and support system in place, waiting for her when she arrives.”
The administrator walked back
toward the facility’s dining hall,
where the bingo game was in full swing.
(The executive whispered into an ear.)
A pair of elderly, cataract-laden eyes rolled,
then glared at me with a hostility that I could feel,
even all the way over by the nurse's station.
“The lady says that she plans to stay with us.”
I nodded, said my thanks, and walked back out into the cold.
This part of the job is always a bit surreal.
It makes me think of my mother.
She was the director of several nursing homes over the course of my youth.
The smells of these facilities is assaultive.
(Industrial cleaning products,
boiled vegetables,
assorted liniments and balms,
the faintest twinge of urine in the nostrils.)
To me these places smell like memories
that go for long periods,
unrecalled,
unrecounted.
(School-age summers
spent in supply rooms,
marking supplies,
stacking them neatly,
like troops ready for deployment.)
Often the nursing home
is thought to be a horrendous destination.
I can understand that.
But, she wanted to stay
and I had interrupted the bingo game,
hadn’t I?
Tonight’s supper was roasted chicken,
mashed potatoes,
pickled beets on the side.
(I’d read as I’d entered.)
Maybe her sons and daughters
didn’t want her anymore.
Maybe they’d visit every afternoon at 4.
There was no way I’d ever know again for sure.
But, I know why this afternoon’s task
made me smile,
stinging at the same time.
Because I’m Cynthia’s son.
***
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications 2018