As I Open the Door

As I Open the Door (peggy’s prompt for 04/10/09)

--I smell
--I hear
--I feel
--I see
--front door
--oven door
--bathroom door
--bedroom door
--classroom door
--cathedral door
--restaurant door
--nursing home door

As I pull open the nursing home door I already get the hint of sanitizing cleaner, like Pine Sol with bleach, or some commercial grade equivalent. I consciously try not to hold my breath, although it’s tempting, both because of the odor that becomes stronger with each step and because I’m not sure what I’ll find when we finally reach G’ma Camp’s room tucked away in the nether regions of the facility.

Judy and Tommy say that she’s not doing so well, that she’s not trying. Sometimes she pushes her food back out of her mouth when Judy feeds her. Most of the time she just lies there, not even trying to use her arms or hands.

We enter through the open door of G’ma’s room and approach her bed. G’ma is lying in the far bed by the window, absolutely still. She doesn’t turn her head or raise her hand or rearrange her feet or give any other indication that she’s aware she has visitors.

My heart sinks and I involuntarily hold my breath again, although the room smells the same as the hallway. I walk to the side of the bed and lean across so that I can look into her face that she has turned toward the window. Her eyes are open, but she doesn’t look at me.

“Jane,” I say softly. “It’s Gwendie. I’ve come to see you. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she says in a low gravelly monotone. “How’s Jonathan?” in the same monotone, still not moving a muscle. “He’s fine,” I say in as normal a voice as I can muster. “That’s good,” she says. This is the beginning of every conversation we’ve had since Jonathan was born 25 years ago, although not with the monotone voice.

G’ma’s daughter Judy steps up to the bedside and I step back. She tells her mother that she’s going to give her lunch. I watch as the nursing assistant raises G’ma’s head and upper body with additional pillows, and Judy pulls open the foil top of a cup of vanilla custard.

“Here, Mom,” Judy says, holding a spoonful of the custard next to G’ma’s mouth. “you need to eat to keep your strength up.” G’ma obediently opens her mouth and takes in the custard, and just as quickly pushes the mouthful back out into Judy’s hand with her tongue. “See what I mean?” Judy says to me. “She’s been doing this the last few days,” Tommy says quietly. “She just won’t eat.”

A few minutes later, after having swallowed a few spoonfuls of applesauce and several sips from some mysterious clear liquid, G’ma turns her head toward the window again and closes her eyes. Clearly, she’s had enough—of food, of visitors, of life.

Judy wipes her mother’s face clean with a damp cloth and we say our good-byes. I lean over and kiss G’ma’s cheek. “Well, I’m going,” I say. “I love you,” I add for probably the first time in the thirty years we’ve been related by marriage. “I love you, too,” she says in that monotone, her head still facing the window. She’s never said “I love you” to me before either, not even the glib “love ya” that people say to end phone calls nowadays.

As we open the door again at the front of the building and walk into the blazing sunlight and clear blue skies of South Texas, tears well up in my eyes. “She’s had another stroke,” I say to Judy and Tommy. “She’s not trying to live anymore.”

I’m not sure they’re convinced of that. But I have the same feeling I had leaving my mother’s house the Christmas before she died, knowing it would be the last Christmas I would ever see Mama in the flesh. It’s so sad for me. I cry for me.

“Good-bye, Grandma,” I whisper to her from Jonathan.

Peggy’s Prompt----“chicken”

Chicken, as in rooster, pullet, hen
Chicken as in coward, gutless
Fried chicken
Chicken-fried steak
I didn’t know it was called “chicken-fried” steak when Mama fixed it for our family. She just called it “steak” and a rare event it was for us, as we subsisted mainly on fish as a protein source. What her “steak” really was, was chopped steak, i.e. hamburger-like patties that had been tenderized to death, mostly by hacking at the patty with a knife, making criss-crossed knife cuts. These patties, somewhere between hamburger and flank steak, she coated in seasoned flour—just salt and pepper—and fried just like she would fry chicken.

I don’t know how old I was—certainly a teenager—before I realized that if you ordered steak in a restaurant what you were served was a whole different animal from what Mama fixed. No flour coating for one thing, and no hatch marks, at least none that cut the flesh. And they might not cook it all the way, unless you asked for “well done”, which usually drew a frown from the waiter and amazed glances between everyone else at the table.

Later, much later, I learned that country folks called Mama’s steak “chicken-fried”, and they would even serve it in a bun. Nowadays I don’t eat much red meat, but when I do I either want chicken-fried steak, as unhealthy as you can get it, or a nice NY strip steak, cooked rare, where all you have to worry about are the residual antibiotics and the immune critters that haven’t been killed by cooking it well done.

Come to think on it, there’s a lot to be said for chicken-fried steak!

(an assignment for an online course, to list...;)

20 Rules I Have Broken

It’s just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor man.
Never say never.
Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.
If you can’t say anything nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all.
Buy low, sell high.
No Parking
Speed Limit 55 mph
Brush your teeth for 2 minutes
Don’t let the dog get on the couch.
Don’t eat crackers in bed.
Smile while you’re feeling sad.
Whistle while you work.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Don’t wear white after Labor Day.
Don’t talk on the telephone when it is lightning.
Wait 30 minutes after eating to swim
Do not microwave
Don’t kiss on the first date
Always Be Prepared
Close cover before striking

Army Tough Guy Trampled by Deer

(a "newspaper article" for an online course I took)
Army Tough Guy Trampled by Deer

Army Sergeant Elwood S. “Woody” Lane was seriously injured yesterday in an unusual encounter with a herd of deer. The Sergeant, whose Army duties include teaching hand-to-hand combat to new recruits, was on vacation taking in the sights at Abbott’s Deer Park on the south side of town. According to Lane, who is expected to make a full recovery, he had stepped out of his car (not recommended by the park owners) to shoot some camcorder footage of deer grazing nearby. Apparently Lane had stopped his car on the path between a young faun and its mother. That’s when the herd began charging toward the car. Lane stayed by the side of the car, expecting the animals to veer left and right around the car. Instead, one of the larger animals came straight toward Lane, knocking him to the ground where he was trampled by several more deer before he could manage to regain entrance to the car. Others in the car, Lane’s wife and two small boys, were uninjured.

After spending last night in the hospital, Lane was released today with multiple contusions and abrasions. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Lane said. “It’s like they wanted to kill me.” The owner of the Deer Park does not plan any changes to park rules for visitors. “Stay in your car” is the rule, he said. “How much plainer can you get?”