I went over to Mom’s apartment last night and discovered clothes everywhere as if the drawers, linen and clothes closets had exploded. She said she was having trouble folding. So I folded and hung and put away sheets to blouses. She said thanks, it looks less depressing now.
We ate some dinner I had brought from Whole Foods – tortilla soup and quesadillas. She had exactly one teaspoon of soup and a bite of the quesadilla.
She said she keeps dreaming she is back at her mother’s house in Franklinton and mama is in the next room. I said I keep dreaming of Samm, my dog I put down six years ago.
The physical therapist is coming three times a week and she loves the company. She was telling me all the things he would like her to do. Go to the mall and walk around once a day. Stretch. I listened. You know the saying, everyone from out of town is a genius? She acted like this information was all new and fresh.
I sat there shaking my leg as I do when I can’t sit still and watched how she dotted her lips with her fingers – old lady style – the way they touch their face and hair as if it is as frail as a robin’s egg. Seventy three, I kept thinking, that is not old!
I asked her why at 50 she had stopped exercising when that was when she needed it the most. She said work took its toll on her. The stress and no time. Then she told me about this young exercise instructor she took back in Georgia, when Dad had taken yet another position in a small town there. She said the woman used to count as they did jumping jacks, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, hunnerd.
Then she exploded with laughter. “Hunnerd! I wanted to tell her it is a hundred, dear.”
This from a woman who could never pronounce salmon (sal man). Whatyagonnado?