Ya can't make this stuff up.
Well, maybe fiction writers can but I don't bother when I have creepy ol' Reality making it up for me. The dialog was branded on my brain so it is as close to what was spoken as I can make it, with slight editing for space.
I ran into an acquaintance and expressed my sympathy at the death of her mother.
"It wasn't too surprising. She had Alzheimer’s and was going downhill the past two years. She was so bad we were about to put her in a home."
"That must have been a burden."
"It was. She couldn't be out of someone's sight for two minutes. Then last weekend the girls were playing in a tournament so nobody could be at home with her. We had to put her with relatives in Rockford."
Rockford is about an hour and a half away and I was about to ask why they did not bring in a nurse or somebody, since that would be cheaper and easier on the old lady, but she continued.
"Then Sunday we got a call. Mom had fallen and they couldn't get her up. She falls all the time and didn't break anything so I told them to wrap a blanket around her and I'd be there right away."
As you will recall from the paragraph before last, "right away" was at least an hour and a half.
"Why didn't anybody call 911?" seemed an obvious question, but I bit my tongue and let her go on.
"When we got there she was still on the floor so we picked her up and put her in our car to bring her back home."
I couldn't resist. "You didn't call 911?"
"Oh, but then she'd be in a hospital in Rockford and how could I take care of her there?"
Her illogic was unassailable.
"My husband drove and I held her hand and then she just stopped breathing. I told my husband, 'I think she's stopped breathing.' We didn't know what to do, whether we should take her to the hospital or straight to the funeral home, so we called the funeral home. When we got there everybody was waiting, the funeral director, an ambulance, and even the police."
Yes, the police are intensely interested in deaths that take place outside of a doctor's care, even deaths of senile old ladies. I was surprised that police representatives from each of the five counties they passed through did not want in on it but maybe they had been warned about my friend by the funeral director and the guys from DuPage County drew the short straw.
Instead of going into the iffy legality of transporting a corpse over county lines I nodded sympathetically and said, "She's in a better place now," not using "your back seat" as an example of a worse place. However, I realized that any insensitivity by me was already overwhelmed by hers so I dared, "Bet you have trouble getting the kids into your car."
"Oh, YEAH! But they'll get over it when we get a new car. At least it didn't happen at home. I'd never get them inside."
I think my friend worked out her own Do Not Resuscitate system, but not consciously, both because this is a good, kind woman who would not wish to harm her mother and because "consciously" implies the level of self-awareness God gave dogs. It is apparent she has not reached it.
(edited to correct formatting)
I ran into an acquaintance and expressed my sympathy at the death of her mother.
"It wasn't too surprising. She had Alzheimer’s and was going downhill the past two years. She was so bad we were about to put her in a home."
"That must have been a burden."
"It was. She couldn't be out of someone's sight for two minutes. Then last weekend the girls were playing in a tournament so nobody could be at home with her. We had to put her with relatives in Rockford."
Rockford is about an hour and a half away and I was about to ask why they did not bring in a nurse or somebody, since that would be cheaper and easier on the old lady, but she continued.
"Then Sunday we got a call. Mom had fallen and they couldn't get her up. She falls all the time and didn't break anything so I told them to wrap a blanket around her and I'd be there right away."
As you will recall from the paragraph before last, "right away" was at least an hour and a half.
"Why didn't anybody call 911?" seemed an obvious question, but I bit my tongue and let her go on.
"When we got there she was still on the floor so we picked her up and put her in our car to bring her back home."
I couldn't resist. "You didn't call 911?"
"Oh, but then she'd be in a hospital in Rockford and how could I take care of her there?"
Her illogic was unassailable.
"My husband drove and I held her hand and then she just stopped breathing. I told my husband, 'I think she's stopped breathing.' We didn't know what to do, whether we should take her to the hospital or straight to the funeral home, so we called the funeral home. When we got there everybody was waiting, the funeral director, an ambulance, and even the police."
Yes, the police are intensely interested in deaths that take place outside of a doctor's care, even deaths of senile old ladies. I was surprised that police representatives from each of the five counties they passed through did not want in on it but maybe they had been warned about my friend by the funeral director and the guys from DuPage County drew the short straw.
Instead of going into the iffy legality of transporting a corpse over county lines I nodded sympathetically and said, "She's in a better place now," not using "your back seat" as an example of a worse place. However, I realized that any insensitivity by me was already overwhelmed by hers so I dared, "Bet you have trouble getting the kids into your car."
"Oh, YEAH! But they'll get over it when we get a new car. At least it didn't happen at home. I'd never get them inside."
I think my friend worked out her own Do Not Resuscitate system, but not consciously, both because this is a good, kind woman who would not wish to harm her mother and because "consciously" implies the level of self-awareness God gave dogs. It is apparent she has not reached it.
(edited to correct formatting)