A November Reprieve
The weather has been very strange ever since the month started and it seemed to erupt one more time over the space of a langorous weekend of sun and fog. Sunday was sunny enough to elicit conversations with total strangers. The man at the front desk shouted, "You're going to love it!" as I made my way to McDonald's for breakfast.
The next day was the Monday we celebrated Veteran's Day and by 10:AM enough fog had burned off to permit most of the island of Manhattan to come into view. A pleasant afternoon in the nursing home courtyard seemed possible if a little incongruous, considering the time of year. I called ahead as soon as the #7 train emerged out of Hunter's Point to get Mom out of bed and hopefully dressed properly.
The sign on the bank building read, 62 degrees as I approached it on foot (I had taken the _other_ bus that veers off the nursing home route, and hadn't exited in time to avoid a walk back to the main drag.) It was a little cool for Mom's likeing; still, I hoped to get in one more dose of Indian Summer.
I had no idea until I read the sign-in sheet that Big Brother had been there at the very moment I was talking to the nurse's station on my cell phone. I found Mom in the t.v. room, sitting in the barcolounger, sideways with her knees bunched up. I'd found an old sweater of hers in the bottom of my dining room chest of drawers; I also brought along a quilt she had sewn many years ago. I must have stashed both items during one of our sweeps of her bedroom at Mommyland in the early aftermath of her move to the nursing home. I stuck Mom's arms through the holes where the sleeves might have been had it been a sleeved sweater and pulled it up over her shoulders as far as it wold go. Next, I layed the quilt length-wise across the barcolouonger. It would remain folded in half until we arrived on the ground floor.
I paused outside the sliding glass doors and adjusted the quilt, unfolding it and tucking it in as snugly as I could. All of that had been stuffed in my Mommybag and it felt good to finally lift it off my shoulders once I wheeled her to a stop at the far end of the patio where the yard transitioned from cement into brick and where one of the wrought-iron settees beckoned.
The sun hit her face and almost immediately she sensed something was different. She raised her hand as if to shield her eyes. Or, perhaps to warm it. I looked for any sign of communication from her. Then, every once in a while I noticed that she would open her eyes, just for an instant as if the check and see if perhaps they were might be working again. They wre gray and mucousy and I could at last sympathize with Sis' obsession with bathing them in wet tissues despite Mom's protests.
This continued for about an hour and a half. I could tell from the set of her jaw and the fastness of her tight lips that Mom was not asleep, but all I could elicit from her was an occasional furrowed brow when I tried to talk to her. I told her that Cousin Mozelle had died. I told her tht Isaac had "passed" and that Kelvin and Valiria both said, "Hello." but she gave no indication that she understood anything that I said, including once the sun went permanently behind a vast network of clouds, a query whether she was "too cold?"
Finally, i couldn't take it any long and I took out a Kleenex from one of the pockets of the Mommybag and tentatively dabbed at her eyes. The mucous had since dried and the tissue did little good. Nevertheless, I could clearly hear her say, "Thank you."
The next day was the Monday we celebrated Veteran's Day and by 10:AM enough fog had burned off to permit most of the island of Manhattan to come into view. A pleasant afternoon in the nursing home courtyard seemed possible if a little incongruous, considering the time of year. I called ahead as soon as the #7 train emerged out of Hunter's Point to get Mom out of bed and hopefully dressed properly.
The sign on the bank building read, 62 degrees as I approached it on foot (I had taken the _other_ bus that veers off the nursing home route, and hadn't exited in time to avoid a walk back to the main drag.) It was a little cool for Mom's likeing; still, I hoped to get in one more dose of Indian Summer.
I had no idea until I read the sign-in sheet that Big Brother had been there at the very moment I was talking to the nurse's station on my cell phone. I found Mom in the t.v. room, sitting in the barcolounger, sideways with her knees bunched up. I'd found an old sweater of hers in the bottom of my dining room chest of drawers; I also brought along a quilt she had sewn many years ago. I must have stashed both items during one of our sweeps of her bedroom at Mommyland in the early aftermath of her move to the nursing home. I stuck Mom's arms through the holes where the sleeves might have been had it been a sleeved sweater and pulled it up over her shoulders as far as it wold go. Next, I layed the quilt length-wise across the barcolouonger. It would remain folded in half until we arrived on the ground floor.
I paused outside the sliding glass doors and adjusted the quilt, unfolding it and tucking it in as snugly as I could. All of that had been stuffed in my Mommybag and it felt good to finally lift it off my shoulders once I wheeled her to a stop at the far end of the patio where the yard transitioned from cement into brick and where one of the wrought-iron settees beckoned.
The sun hit her face and almost immediately she sensed something was different. She raised her hand as if to shield her eyes. Or, perhaps to warm it. I looked for any sign of communication from her. Then, every once in a while I noticed that she would open her eyes, just for an instant as if the check and see if perhaps they were might be working again. They wre gray and mucousy and I could at last sympathize with Sis' obsession with bathing them in wet tissues despite Mom's protests.
This continued for about an hour and a half. I could tell from the set of her jaw and the fastness of her tight lips that Mom was not asleep, but all I could elicit from her was an occasional furrowed brow when I tried to talk to her. I told her that Cousin Mozelle had died. I told her tht Isaac had "passed" and that Kelvin and Valiria both said, "Hello." but she gave no indication that she understood anything that I said, including once the sun went permanently behind a vast network of clouds, a query whether she was "too cold?"
Finally, i couldn't take it any long and I took out a Kleenex from one of the pockets of the Mommybag and tentatively dabbed at her eyes. The mucous had since dried and the tissue did little good. Nevertheless, I could clearly hear her say, "Thank you."