by Kathy Brasby | Sep 19, 2014 | Seasons
My brother and I never ran past the house that loomed behind overgrown plants on our way home from school. That’s why we were sometimes nabbed by that fearful call from the old lady who lived there: “Yoohoo, children.”
Mrs. Bishop seemed to be at least 120 to us and she’d come to her gate with her white hair and big smile.
“Come in for a minute.”
We hadn’t been raised to be rude and so we filed into her faded parlor where we’d hear stories about her cats and her flowers while being served gritty rubber ice cream or petrified chocolate.
We never knew how to excuse ourselves so we sat, knowing we were late getting home.
Finally Mrs. Bishop set us free and we rushed home.
“Mrs. Bishop —“ I said to Mom.
And she waved her hand. “I figured as much.”
That was it. No lectures or anger.
I didn’t know it then but grace from my mother flowed through us to a lonely elderly woman who only wanted to share a little of her life with her neighbors.
They may seem to loom as ancient and irrelevant, but the elderly blossom with our grace and kindness.
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by Kathy Brasby | Sep 12, 2014 | Seasons
For Lindsay, watching her mother tend to laundry stirred the same emotions as watching her children climb to the top of the swing set.
“Mom, be careful!”
Dorothy held the basket of dirty clothes in both hands and leaned against the handrail as she one-stepped her way to the basement.
“I’m fine,” Dorothy said. “I do this all the time.”
Lindsay grabbed the handrail, which shivered in her hand as many in older homes do. “This isn’t sturdy.”
“It’s fine. I know how to do this.” Dorothy set the basket on the floor to switch on the light. The basement darkness disappeared in orange brightness.
Dorothy took a cleansing breath and leaned over to pick up the basket.
“How do you get the clothes back upstairs?”
Dorothy set the basket down and leaned against the door jamb to the laundry room. “Sometimes your father takes it up for me. But I can always take up a few pieces at a time.” She smiled at Lindsay. “It’s fine.”
Lindsay’s father used a cane. Trips from room to room were slow. Like old molasses.
“It must take all day to do the laundry.”
“We have to do it,” Dorothy said. “We manage just fine.”
Lindsay called her brother later in the day. “OK, I get it now. It’s time, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Jim said. “We need changes before one of them falls.”
“I’m not ready to parent my parents.”
“Get ready,” Jim said. “If you love them, get ready.”
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by Kathy Brasby | Sep 5, 2014 | Seasons
Eileen’s voice rumbled down the long hallway at the nursing home, skidding past open doors and slamming into the nurse’s station desk.
“Where am I?” she asked. Loudly and often. “What am I doing?”
Two aides were helping a man re-settle in his wheelchair. They didn’t turn to Eileen.
A nurse wrote notes in a file folder. She didn’t look up.
“Where am I?” Eileen thundered. “What am I doing?”
This was Eileen’s life until one day her daughter came to visit.
“Shh, Mom,” the daughter said, leaning close to Eileen’s ear. “I’m taking you to lunch.”
“I just don’t know what to do,” Eileen said.
“You’re going to eat.” The daughter settled into a chair with a sign.
Eileen ate lunch.
After lunch, the daughter was joined by more family members who carried paper bags and a cake box.
Then they rolled Eileen and her wheelchair out the door to the patio.
Eileen looked around but she didn’t say a word.
“We’re going out here,” said a family member. “It’s your birthday today.”
Eileen nodded but she didn’t speak.
On that day, with family celebrating another milestone with Eileen, she didn’t need to ask any questions.
She didn’t ask who she was or what she was doing.
“I’ll have some cake,” she announced.
She was with family and that was enough for Eileen.
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by Kathy Brasby | Aug 29, 2014 | Seasons
It really is about focus.
Elsa shuffled her walker to the nursing home patio every afternoon unless her ankles were too swollen to allow shuffling.
“Have you seen the baby birds? ” Her face brightened as she looked to the ceiling of the patio. “There are four or five babies up there. I watch the mother ad father bringing food every day.”
She settled on a bench with a grunt and then craned her neck. “This is the second family this summer. I watched when the first babies finally flew away. They were almost bigger than the nest.”
Elsa rearranged her walker and leaned onto the top. “I come out here every day to check on them. These new babies ought to start flying before winter.”
Elsa’s legs were stiff and swollen enough she couldn’t tuck her feet under the bench. She ignored that.
“The father of that bird family helps with all the feeding. He’s as busy as the mother.” Elsa glanced at us. “I love watching these birds.”
I don’t know what causes Elsa’s swollen ankles. I don’t know why she shuffles along with a walker. I think she’d tell me if I asked.
I don’t ask.
It is about focus. Mine, a little bit, but mostly, hers.
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by Kathy Brasby | Aug 22, 2014 | Seasons
Eating fish with decent flavor proved to be one of the many struggles for Bob and Iris as they worked to remain at home in their twilight years.
Iris had picked up some bland tilapia and hunted for a seasoning to spice up the fish. She found a bottle on sale- a victory. For the most part.
But the victory picked up a little patina when she tried to pop off the plastic covering to peel away protective seal. The plastic cap refused to budge.
Iris couldn’t see well enough to locate the seam between the cap and the bottle so, after several tries with a table knife, she handed the project over to Bob.
Bob’s hands were stiff and weak with arthritis but he gripped the cap with determination. He tried a paring knife and a pair of scissors.
“They put super glue under this cap,” Iris declared.
“Food quality glue,” Bob added.
He finally tore the cap loose and freed the trapped seasoning in the bottle.
“The manufacturers must mean this stuff for nimble fingers,” Bob said.
“Or for people who can see,” Iris said.
For Bob and Iris, most jars could be conquered with a electric bottle opener or a pair of pliers.
This was all part of their survival strategies. They were always on the lookout for tools to conquer products that weren’t sympathetic to fading eyes and stiff fingers.
But the work was worth it.
“The fish was delicious,” Iris said.
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by Kathy Brasby | Aug 8, 2014 | Seasons
“Harvey always walked around with his head bend down,” the physical therapist told me over coffee and scones. “He had a walker and he’d walk hunched over. We worked on that for weeks but I never could get him to lift his head.”
“Frustrating for you?” I asked.
She chuckled. “More for him, but he never knew.”
“So did you change his therapy schedule?”
“Well, yes.” She sipped her coffee. “One day Harvey was walking down the hallway, like he always did, with his eyes on the floor and his head hunched over. We had a new resident on the floor that liked to escape her room early.”
“Escape her room?”
The therapist nodded. “She liked to sneak out of her room topless.”
“Oh, no.”
“Well, Harvey was making his way down the hallway when this lady did her thing. She walked right by Harvey without a stitch on top.”
“And Harvey—“
“Oh, Harvey just kept shuffling along.”
“He was shocked?”
The therapist took a bite of her scone. “He had his head down and he never saw a thing. Missed the whole show.”
“Did you ever tell him?”
“Nope. I decided he could keep shuffling along. We’d work on something else.”
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