Ginnie

Every once in awhile I hear her catch her breath.  Not a whimper- just a sudden small sigh.  She doesn’t move.  Her hospital bed faces the window which looks out to the woods behind her home.  Someone brought her yellow and white roses a few days ago.  They are beginning to wilt and I am reminded of Beauty and the Beast and I wonder when the final rose petal will drop.

Her house is set up on a hill.  A pond and a stream to the side.  Her gardens; lilies, peonies, and tall grasses are all waking up but I am not sure she will see them bloom.

She isn’t interested in talking much and I am left to guess who she was and who she loved by what she owned.  I see a photo of little girls in bathing suits from the 1920s, maybe.  A sister? A pile of well-loved art supplies is on a bench near the front door. She was an artist. I wonder if she liked to paint outside.

I see many books on how to control your weight and then one…Eat, Drink and Be Happy and I think, finally! Ironically, she mostly refuses food now.  Her diet, like that of a young infant, is entirely liquid.  As she ages backward, her most basic needs need to be met once again. Though this time, unlike an infant, she is conscious of her need.

She sleeps nearly twenty-four hours a day. But she isn’t alone.  She is fortunate.  Her family comes and goes.  A team of caregivers ready to help her if she asks.  Though, she doesn’t ask. Instead, she says she’s tired and wants to sleep forever.

A lifetime of art made and collected is in this house.  The house itself is art.  Post and beam, the craftsman’s art. It was her husband’s dream to build the house, she tells me. “Build the damn house,” is what she tells me she told him. She smiles telling me of the time she first saw him.  75 years later, he is still handsome to her.

When she doesn't need me, I sit in what is surely her favorite chair in the living room.  A book and her glasses on the table next to her chair.  She hasn’t finished the book if the bookmark is any indication. Nor will she.  

The morning sun pours in through the wall of windows that remind me of an altar and I am bathed in light and warmth. The post and beam home creaks when the wind blows, shifting and sighing. Through the monitor, I hear her doing the same.  

I check on her and see her eyes moving underneath her eyelids. I wonder what movie she watches, which reel of her life plays for her. But maybe it’s not the past she dreams of.

Shifts are long, usually twelve hours. Yesterday was fourteen. I don't mind. I enjoy the quiet but a cup of tea helps in the early evening. Hating to break the silence, I tiptoe to the kitchen. She loved to cook. Two little dishes filled with salt and pepper, ready to add a pinch to whatever she is cooking, wait on the range. The kitchen, though beautiful, now lays dormant.

As I make my tea, I recognize the name of the local artist who painted the picture hanging in the kitchen. It’s lovely. A harbor. On a slow, summer day. A long strip of lawn draws your eye to the water and then up to the sky, the hem of heaven. The clouds drift by. All the edges are soft, like in a dream.

I tell her how much I like the painting and why. She likes it for the same reasons.  It hangs above the coffee station, the perfect piece to greet you before the new day starts, before you’ve found your glasses, and before the caffeine kicks in.

I get her ready for bed. Her body is now like the painting.  Her edges are soft, her skin like tissue paper. Her hair is white and tufted like the clouds in the painting.

We do our awkward dance to get her out of bed and onto the commode.  Her hands around my neck, we “waltz”, a step or two. I lower her and she is exhausted.  I change her clothes and then we waltz back to bed.  A day’s work to move a few inches. I shake out the sheet, the coverlet, and the fleece and watch them float down to cover her. Finally, I tuck her in under the cloud of a down comforter. She is content.

She wakes later.  “Which one are you?” she asks.

I tell her my name again, “Jennifer.”

“So, Jennie…” she says.  And Jennie it is.  I ask if she’d like to watch tv.  No is the answer I get but there was one show she did like to watch on tv.  There was a western she enjoyed. She struggles to recall the name. It comes to her, “Gunsmoke. I liked Gunsmoke.”

I offer to read to her. I brought a book that I thought maybe she’d like. A friend has lent it to me. It is probably out of print at this point. The Shape of a Year, a woman’s reflection on gardening and life. She says no. Back in my bag it goes. Instead, we talk about events long ago.  Current events don’t really interest her.

I wander back to the living room so she can get busy again with the act of dying. Sometimes I hear her counting, “...21,22,23...” I don't think it's sheep she's counting. Seconds. I think she's counting the seconds. I wonder when the seconds turn to minutes and minutes to hours if she feels disappointed. How long does it take to die?

Her life has been long and from the outside, looks like it was wonderful.  But I am in my 50’s now and know well enough very few people live a long life without a heartache of some sort.

Her stamina declines.

The trip to the commode might as well be asking her to climb Mount Everest. One of the other caregivers explains to me how to change her and stops to tell me about her disabled grandson and how she uses the same technique on him.  Everyone has a heartache.

I don’t feel the heartache in the house though. I see a young girl who went to 17 different schools. I see the young woman who wore light blue on her wedding day. I see the young mother loving and chasing three children. I see the middle-aged woman who realized a dream and opened a business. I see the older woman who retired to spend time with her husband and now, I see a tired, elderly woman who never complains. Stoic to the end.

When she wakes, we watch the birds come to the bird feeder her son-in-law and grandson hung outside her window. It’s late spring. The birds are starting to come and they come in pairs. The cardinals and the goldfinches, the little brown songbirds and the bluejays who just watch from afar. We talk about marriage while we watch the birds eat. She saw her husband for the first time as he boarded the school bus. He wore yellow socks and a yellow sweater.

“Do you think heaven will be pretty?” she asks later.

I hope so. I hope heaven is all the colors she loves best, all the people she misses most, and has the best Manhattans she’s ever tasted. I hope it's like the painting in the kitchen.

As I drive away that evening, I glance back at the house.  The wall of windows that let the sunlight pour in bathing me in light and warmth, were now glowing- lit from within, the light spilling down the hill and into the woods.