by Kathy Brasby | Jul 3, 2015 | Seasons
Howard stepped off the city bus, straightened his jacket, and limped into the nursing home.
“I used to do that job,”he told me, pointing his head at the bus. “Before I retired.”
He made his way into his new job. Howard’s home was an assisted living facility across town.
His wife, Mildred,had been transferred to the nursing home a few months ago.
Howard spent his days with Mildred. “I get my breakfast at the Oaks then take the bus here. The last bus runs back to the Oaks right after dinner so I can eat lunch and dinner with Mildred before heading back. ”
Later Howard sat with Mildred at a round of bocce balls, a game a little like shuffleboard but using only balls. He took his turn, aiming his ball at the target. “Turn left. More!” He directed his ball. “Aw, it doesn’t listen very well.”
Then he gently pressed Mildred’s ball into her gnarled hand. “Roll the ball. Knock that blue ball out of here. ”
Mildred stared at the floor. After he urged her two more times, she lifted her head and dropped the ball. It listed to the left and stopped.
“Pretty good,” Howard said. “Maybe our team will win.”
Later he pulled out matching red cowboy hats. Mildred wore hers all day without saying a word. In fact, she didn’t say much any day.
But Howard came every day.
“We’ve been married 15 years,” Howard told me one afternoon.
Long enough to cleave for a lifetime.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jun 30, 2015 | Stories
My rich uncle in Nigeria – the one who wanted to help me inherit the million bucks – appears to have abandoned me. So has the thoughtful lady who emailed me stating that my resume is so impressive that she’ll send me money just for laundering hers.
That’s an impressive resume, but I digress.
Recently I got an email from my sweet employer informing me that I am eligible to get some of my pay in advance. “We know it has been a difficult month for everyone, so this is to make life that little bit easier.”
And who hasn’t had a difficult month? Wow, I mean I dropped an old glass in the kitchen and had to sweep up the broken pieces. Plus the mailman was late one day and I had to go to the mailbox twice. And, as the final straw, the last lightbulb went out above our dining room table.
I needed this.
My boss also included a link that contained “goldbar.” Who would question that?
I only had to verify that this was my account. I glanced to the top of the email, where I was clearly identified as “Hello.“ And there was the link again, with the gold bar buried in between a menagerie of letters and numbers.
Dollar signs were doing the cha-cha before my eyes.
Just for clicking that link, I would receive over $2,890 with the rest transferred at the end of the month as normal. Heh, heh, my boss had obviously forgotten that the last time I’d gotten a check for over $2,890 it was for the quarter, not the month.
But this was my account and this was my thoughtful employer. And there was the gold bar.
All I had to do was click a link.
My mouse hovered. My mind spun. And then I remembered. I’m self-employed.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jun 26, 2015 | Seasons
Agnes leaned over the lunch table, her eyebrows bent together.
“My brother-in-law is here but he won’t speak to me.”
I had joined her table at the nursing home just before lunch was served. I glanced over my shoulder at a white-haired man staring down at the table before him. He didn’t look like he talked to anyone. “Really? That’s too bad.”
She nodded. “I’ve spoken to him several times but he turns away. And do you know what else? He’s changed his name from Bob to James!”
I knew her brother-in-law lived 300 miles away and so I took a deep breath. “That’s frustrating for you, I’ll bet.”
“Well,” she settled back in her chair, “I just go on. What else can you do?” She studied me for a moment and then leaned forward again.
“And then there’s a woman who denies her own children.”
How did I answer this one? “Really? That’s awful.”
Agnes tilted her head. “I know. I asked her one day about her children and she claims she doesn’t have any children. She even told me she had never married. How could she forget her own husband?”
“I can see that upsets you.”
“I went up to June and asked her, ‘Do you know Melvin Roberts?’ and she said she’d never heard of him. He was her husband for 40 years. How about that?”
I knew June, too. She sat at another table in the dining room, waving at newcomers and chatting happily with others at her table. And I knew she’d never married and her last name wasn’t Roberts.
“Do you think you’ve confused June with someone else?” I asked.
“Oh,” Agnes studied my face. “I can see they’ve convinced you, too.”
Once I would have defended my position. Once I would have tried to change Agnes’ mind. But I knew she’d forget our conversation tomorrow no matter what I said. Kindness won out.
“Well, family is important to you, isn’t it?” I said.
Her face relaxed. “I’ll never forget my husband or children.”
She probably wouldn’t. But the brother-in-law was in trouble.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jun 23, 2015 | Stories
Our family has always dreamed of crafting those extravagant cakes like the Food Network highlights.
Some of the kids invested time on 4-H cake decorating units.
A 4-H project manual builds basic skills so unit one zeroes in a simple icing, a couple of tools, and a one-layer cake with the goal to exhibit the best project at the county fair.
The cake part proved to be a problem for daughter number one, who baked her show cake the afternoon before it had to be entered. When the edges of the cake wouldn’t release from the pan, she solved the problem by cutting away the edges.
Most of the cakes entered were 8” round but hers was more of a 5” lumpy. She slathered on icing but it was like trying to hide Mount Everest under an ice cream cone. No champion ribbon that year.
Daughter number two was the creative sort stifled by the rules for the unit. When she was required to form a mat of frosting stars, she didn’t understand why the cake couldn’t show through. It would be like hiding the tuba in the marching band.
No blue ribbon that year, either.
Our son, at age 10, signed up for cake decorating and even went to a workshop where he and 25 girls learned the fine art of placing stars of frosting on waxed paper. This, of course, made absolutely no sense to him except he licked clean the frosting after the workshop.
We found out later that he signed up so that he could be in charge of the family birthday cakes. He figured if he’d finished cake decorating, I’d let him do the cakes.
And lick the frosting, too.
His show cake came together on a hot summer day with frosting that needed a lot more sugar than he put in the bowl. Imagine a lava flow sliding across his design.
The lava-icing flow continued until he got the cake to the fairgrounds. His frosting border resembled the outline of Texas.
No blue ribbon that time either.
But he didn’t need any cake decorating classes to take over the birthday cake tradition in our family. I had once served crumbs molded like the foothills of Colorado with icing drizzled over the top. I had hoped for a puppy shape but that didn’t work out either.
So I had no cake decorating tradition to enforce.
I let him take care of the birthday cakes.
I was in charge of licking the bowl.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jun 19, 2015 | Seasons
Harvey’s eyes lit up when his wife walked through the front door of the nursing home and made her way to where he waited.
“I’ve got great news,” he said. Her eyebrows lifted. “I walked last night.”
“You did?” She glanced down at his wheelchair and his limp legs.
“I’ve been practicing,” he said. “I can show you.”
“Uh, well—“
Harvey leaned forward, gripping the armrests on his wheelchair. “I just need you to help me get started.”
She glanced around the lobby. “I don’t think I can help—“
“Oh, you under-estimate yourself. We can do this.” Harvey settled back in his wheelchair. “I practice every night.”
His wife sighed. “I think we should wait for a little help. I can’t do this alone.”
She knew that he hadn’t walked in over a year, not since he had fallen.
“All right. We can wait, I guess.”
Dreams, more vivid than the orange sunset, captivated Harvey’s days. Many of his nights included walks to friends’ houses, to the basement, and to the park.
She patted his arm and gave him a hug. “How are you feeling today?”
“Good. Did I tell you that Jerry visited me last night? I don’t know why he came but we had a good talk.”
Harvey’s wife smiled. Their oldest son lived 2000 miles away and only came on special occasions. She was pretty sure he hadn’t slipped in during the night for a visit.
“And did you enjoy talking with him?”
“Of course. He’s planning to move here soon so he can live with me.”
“I’ll bet that made you feel good. He loves you a lot, doesn’t he?”
Harvey nodded. “I guess so.”
Every day, Harvey’s wife came to kiss his forehead and hear his dreams. She loved him a lot, too.
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