It must be the nights that are the worst. To be alone in the dark. No snuffling, snoring, irritating presence in the bed beside her. No one to speak to. No one to complain to. No one after forty years of someone. She feels so superior to many others at the Retirement Community. Superior to […]
Why is it so difficult to talk to a deaf or almost deaf person? Recently I was sitting in a lovely garden, purple bougainvillea falling over an orange wall, blue and yellow flowers nodding in the breeze, palm fronds rattling in a soft whisper overhead. I was working away on my laptop when my attention […]
“I don’t know why my daughter is so worried about me,” Mom said to her table-mate, Diana. I was leaving for a week-long trip. I had reminded her I was going, wrote it on her large wall calendar, left notes around her room and let the staff of the Retirement Community know that I would […]
“Again?” my 98 year-old mother says, with considerable irritation, as I walk into the dining room of the retirement community. One daren’t call them nursing homes anymore. “I thought you were gone on your trip,” she says, angry now. “What are you doing here?” It’s true. I was supposed to be gone. First a week-long […]