13
Our trays
were put in front of us. We had
pancakes, sausage, and cheerios; also, the usual liquids that I had at every
meal so far. “Boy, they don’t scrimp on
the food or drinks do they” I said.
Clara
answered “No, they sure don’t. You would
think by my weight I eat everything but I usually don’t. I take what I can’t finish back to my room
for later or give it to someone else.”
“Good
idea. Can I ask how you like it
here?”
“I like it
okay. There are plenty of things to
do. They have bingo, exercises, art and
all kinds of other things if you’re willing to do them. They
have entertainment come in which I really like a lot. They also have outings you can sign up for.
“Sounds
like it’s up to the person to make of this place what they want.”
“Yes,
that’s exactly how I would put it. While
I can, I’m going to do everything before it’s too late. If you know what I mean.” I knew exactly what she meant. I decided right then and there I would
too.
“Hey
girlies.” I turned around and smiled at
Fred.
“Don’t
encourage him” Clara said.
“I don’t
want to be rude.”
“The
longer you’re here you will learn. There
are some people you just have to ignore.
He calls everyone girlie, even men” and she laughed.
“What’s
his story?”
“He’s a
nice enough guy but if you get to talking to him you’ll never get away. He was here when I got here. He told me he’s got children but I’ve never
seen them. His wife is long gone. He can get around pretty well but he’s always
trying to get out of here and go back home to see her.”
“I saw
this morning that he tried to get out.”
“Yeah, he
does it like clockwork every morning. I
don’t know why only in the morning but that’s what he does.”
“Around
10:00, they are going to be playing bingo would you like to play?”
“Sure, it
sounds fun.”
“Hey
Sheila” Clara yelled “mark me and Annie down for bingo this morning.”
“Will do”
Sheila said.
“They will
come and get us around 9:00. We get to
get off this floor, thank goodness. We’ll
have something new to see.”
“Where is
it going to be?”
“It’s on
the second floor. When they are going
have something where a lot of people will attend it’s usually up there.”
We were
finished eating and I told Clara I was going to freshen up. When I went back to my room, the phone was
ringing.
“Hello?”
“Hello?”
“Mom where
were you? I’ve been calling for the last
half hour.”
“I was at
breakfast Julie. Is something
wrong?”
“No, not
really. I got concerned when I couldn’t
get a hold of you.”
“That’s
exactly why I’m here Julie, so you don’t have to be worried about me
anymore. If you call and I’m not here
that means I’m out of my room doing something.
In fact, I just came back to freshen up and then I’m going to be playing
bingo.”
“That’s
nice Mom. I wanted to tell you that
Jerry’s going to be there in the morning tomorrow and I’m coming in the evening
if that’s okay.”
“That’s
fine; whatever you two decide is good with me.
I’m not going anywhere.I really
have to go now, they will be coming to get me and I don’t want to keep Clara
waiting.”
“Who is
Clara?” “She’s the woman who lives next
door to me. She’s very nice and is
showing me the ropes.”
“Okay mom, have a good time at bingo. Oh one more thing, Jill wanted me to ask you if you got whatever she needed taken care of. Whatever that means.”
“Tell her,
yes I did and it’s waiting for her.”
“See you tomorrow mom. Love you.”
“Me too dear.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
1 comment:
This is a good representation of life in a nursing home. I wonder how the people that work there really feel about working there and caring for the elderly. I'll be back next week for the next installment!~Ames
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