I am joining with 50,000 other people participating in “1,000 Words of Summer.” The “challenge” is to write 1,000 words a day from May 29 to June 12. I am starting May 31 and continuing through the end of June. I am publishing a few of them here.
She wakes to the sound of birds singing. It recalls the flighty cardinal who barely perches on the porch rail at home. The porch where she sat on a rocker saying “blue devil, blue devil, blue devil” over and over again, knowing that it was somehow naughty to say “devil,” but never knowing why.
Back home, where mother cooked at the wood stove. It wasn’t that long ago; she is still so young.
She hears a rustling on the bed beside her. “What’s that?” as fear shoots through her body. It’s a man! What? Who? How? Will he hurt her as the Colonel did? “Oh, dear Lord, protect me from him. Oh, God, hear my prayer. I love you, Jesus. Please don’t let him hurt me.”
She begins to cry.
Now she’s angry. “Who are you and what are you doing in my bed. Get out. I will scream!” All she can think is that it’s that pervert Pastor Smock who asked her for “just a kiss” in the kitchen—not that long ago, it seems.
“Honey, it’s me. It’s okay.”
A hand touches her shoulder. “Don’t you dare touch me!”
“Flo, it’s me, Pete. It’s okay. I’m your husband.”
“My husband—ha! You are far too old for that. You’re not Pete—why, he has dark hair, and his skin is so smooth—looking so fine in that Navy uniform. Get out!”
He sighs and gets out of bed. “Let me get you some breakfast.”
She’s terrified and notices that her pillow is wet. Did she spill some water from the bedside stand? Is there any water there? Where is she and how did she get here? Maybe she can get past him and go out into the kitchen and call someone… But is the kitchen out there, through that doorway? She can’t be sure. This isn’t her house. Wait, the one with the kitchen “out there” or the one with the kitchen “down there?” This place isn’t either, but where is it?
She sits up thinking of that kitchen/those kitchens. Of baking pies and chocolate cake with caramel icing. Someone’s birthday. Maybe it is Diana’s. She loves those sweets—just home from college. Now, which college is that? Barrington—along that beautiful coast up north, in Rhode Island. Yes. They were just there. Did she graduate? Oh, yes—we went for that. So proud. She is a fine young woman. I always wonder if she will get married soon.
Is this now?
“Pete—oh, there you are. There was a man in here, and I don’t know who he was, and I think I am supposed to make a cake for Diana today—is it her 22nd or 23rd birthday?”
He smiles, glad to have her back, recognizing him. Last week, she slapped and punched him. Made his nose bleed, and he still has a bruise on his arm. They don’t heal like they used to.
He’s tired.
She tossed a lot last night and coughed so much. She seems to have trouble swallowing now. The days are scary. He can never know what she will do. His worst fear is her getting out and getting lost. He can barely go to the bathroom. He never imagined such simple things could cause such fear. Keep her in sight. That’s his commitment
The daycare had worked out well, but she seems to be past that now. She is afraid of so many things.
She, meanwhile, sits on the bed thinking of getting dressed. She was never one for high fashion, but she knows how to make the most of what she has been given. But her hair, that is her pride. Maybe she’ll drive over to Elaine’s today and have it done. Did she just get it done last week? Seems so. Maybe she can wait.
She finds her dress, but this one is SO hard to get on. She struggles. Pete comes to help. “Here, let me get that.”
“Oh, leave me alone, I can dress myself.”
He knows she usually cannot.
After it is all in a twisted knot, he comes back, and she acquiesces. But she is not happy about it.
“I am not a child.”
Children—oh yes, she has six. Diana, Rodney, Coletti, Cheryl, Darwin, and Robbie. In that order. All such nice young people. Robbie’s actually still a baby. Where is he? Is someone taking care of him today? Oh, yes, I’ve been sick. Daddy keeps them all out of the room, that’s why I can’t see them. Robbie must be at a babysitter. Oh, he will cause her such a headache.
I’ve been sick, yes. I can’t use my arm like I could before. I can’t sing. I used to be so good at it. Wait, am I still sick in bed? But I’m not sick now, am I? I sang in Allentown so recently, and it went so well. I wonder if they will invite me back—those smiling faces.
Is this today?
She talks to herself (as she’s always done): “What’s wrong with you Flo? Well, you are not getting any younger, are you? Never were too smart, were you? Yup, I’m stupid. Can’t even remember where the kitchen is!”
“What’s that?” Pete asks.
“Oh, I was just thinking it would be good to go see Dad and Dale. We can take Darwin and Robbie to keep it simpler. The girls can stay alone now. I know I am feeling better, and I think we should just drive down and see them for a week? Can you get off work?
“Flo, Dad, and Dale are dead. Robbie lives in California.
“Why do you say such awful things? Why didn’t I just see Robbie yesterday after he came home from the sitter? Lives in California? That’s ridiculous. Why are you teasing me, Pete?”
He brings her over to the table. There’s yogurt and some toast. The toast is getting harder for her, but she likes it, and she can mostly get it down. She choked yesterday. Just keep the water nearby.
“Honey, we live at Darwin’s house. In the basement. Robbie moved to California about five years ago. Dad and Dale have been gone for many years. We live here now. Everything’s okay, but they said it’s okay if I tell you the truth. It won’t matter now. And so, I feel like I should. I love you, Flo. I would never hurt you. You know that, don’t you?”
She considers the yogurt—never had that back home. They have eggs, when they can afford them, and a bit of corn mush. There’s a depression on just now, and everyone is suffering. That and dad just drinks too much. Last week (was it?), he got into a fight with Harold. I was scared.
What was he just saying about Darwin and Robbie and California and Dad and Dale? I worry about that man. He says crazy things. I don’t understand why.
Everything is very clear to her. She is going to Weaver’s later today to sort socks. She will come home, up the street from the store, around 3:00, and make dinner. Tonight will be tuna and noodle casserole. None of the kids turns their noses up at that. If she has time before prayer meeting, she will make a little cake—something Pete likes. That white cake with white icing. Then they will drive to Ephrata (or is it Terre Hill), and is that house up the street from Weaver’s or over in Bowmansville?
Something’s wrong. Everything is clear.
But when is she?
She looks at Pete. “I love you, honey. Maybe we could take Darwin and Robbie and go to Dad and Dale’s this summer for vacation. We have not done that in a few years.”
Then and Now
Flo passed away just months later. I sat at the foot of her bed for a few hours before my flight back to Northern CA. She talked about many things, mostly of times that predated my arrival on earth. The details were sharp and delivered without hesitation. She chatted openly as she always did with strangers, like the one in front of her.
The talk wandered around to the subject of the birth of her “baby.” She recalled it with a smile and vivid details about the weather, time of day, and the realization that this would be her last.
I said, “Mom, that’s me. I’m Robbie.”
She gave me that smile, the one that turned up just one side of her face. The smile that said, “You’re trying to pull one over on me, but I’m in on the joke.” Then she said with a small laugh, “Aw, you’re not Robbie, he’s just a baby.”
I never saw her again.
But it was in those final moments that I gained a sense of what Alzheimer’s had done to mom’s mind. I am not an expert on these things, but we all knew what we heard and saw. Mom could recall very clearly events that had happened many decades before. It is not that she remembered everything; it seemed that what she could remember were the events that were accompanied by deep emotions: joy, shame, anger, fear, love, trauma, and belonging. Almost as if those things—weddings, funerals, births, abuse, graduations—were etched in a different part of the brain that her disease could not reach.
Mom, like Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim, had become “unstuck in time.” Or, perhaps, more correctly, mom’s mind had become unstuck in time. Imagine the confusion of standing up in a room and not knowing where that room might be, then recalling intensely, events of a prior time. The only problem was that those events themselves could become confused.
She could remember going to church (one of her favorite things), but was it from Bowmansville to Terre Hill or to Ephrata? Or was she going to Ephrata from Fivepointville? She had lived in both and gone to church in both, and memories of both were so clear.
She couldn’t remember five minutes ago, but all the rest crowded in—a cruel mélange that must have been unbearable at times.
What is now? When is now? Where am I now? Who, really, am I now?
I don’t know what the official cause of death was, but I know that the trickster who stole today and replaced it with every meaningful memory of yesterday led her down a confused and torturous ten-year path that ended in her release.
Billy Pilgrim could see his future. I am not sure that mom ever did. But I can hope that the God in whom she had placed her trust provided her visions of the heaven she had never seen in waking, but perhaps had dreamed of in rapturous moments of delight. Maybe those “memories,” too, were etched with all the rest.
Traveling at the Speed of Bike 