I’m old. They don’t even bother to call me ‘Senior Citizen’ anymore. They just call me old. They act toward me like I never had a life before I got old. But they would be surprised at the life I’ve had—before I got old
I think about my younger life pretty often nowadays, another sign of old, I guess. Just yesterday I tried to climb the stairs again. She caught me and fussed. I didn’t really listen to what she was saying. I’ll get another chance today. She left a little while ago. Going to the store, she said. A perfect time. I have forgotten what is up there. Living in a house and not remembering what is in the upstairs of it! What a shame. I’ll climb the stairs today—something I haven’t been allowed to do since—what did they call it, oh yes, a brain attack. How long ago was that? It doesn’t matter. But today she will be gone long enough I can try again.

      I remember how I use to bounce up those stairs. Seems like just a short while ago that Daniel and I would make a game of ‘hide and seek, mostly on rainy days. When I was ‘it,’ I’d zip up those stairs in almost a single leap, like Superman®. Daniel would look and look behind every door, under every bed. Soon he would start to whimper, "Mama, Mama, where are you?" My heart would melt at the plaintive sound of his voice and I’d come out from my hiding place, grab him up and smother his face with wet kisses. I loved my boy, my redhead, freckled face baby boy. He was my life, my reason for living, the reason I was born. I only stayed with his father until—oh well, that’s not something I could ever put into words and it’s better left that way.

      The stairs. Yes. I’m going to climb the stairs. She said she would get whatever I wanted from up there and bring it to me. Silly girl. I do not remember what all is up there. Let’see—the last time I was up there, um...doesn’t matter. They say my memory was affected when I had the attack. I’ve thought about that for a long time. I think it only erased part of the bad and nearly all the good memories. My good memories, the ones that remain, are of Daniel. Only death, a good, cold death will ever take those away from me. They said I should consider myself lucky to be alive. If one calls being lucky an old woman unable to use her right hand, unable to cook her own meals, no longer able to grow roses—oh, the beautiful roses I have grown! The prizes I have won for them. Where are all those ribbons I won for my roses? I wonder where they are. What good are memories if one does not remember the endings of them?

      Sometimes my left leg doesn’t stay in tune with my right leg. I just drag it along. I’ll have to drag it up the stairs, so be it. I still do not believe they make me take therapy after the attack. Can you imagine—me, an old woman and they pulled, poked and pressure-pointed me all over. When I cried out I was surely dying, they response with their condescending smiles. Did it help? Who knows, or cares. It’s too late. I’m just an old woman bent on getting up those stairs.

      How long has she been gone? I used to wear a watch. It was a...um, I think it was a Hamilton. It was a pretty watch and a good one. I took lots of showers with that watch on. I kept forgetting to take it off, but it kept working, telling the right time. I was a young woman then. Just proves even the young can have a little bit of dementia. He gave me that watch and a pair of pearl earrings. I wore no other earring for ten year, yes, at least ten years. Something happened to him. He went away. I never forgot him and clung to the earrings as if they would someday bring him back to me. One night in the shower—it was my right ear—I do not know why I felt the lobe of it with a fear that bought sickness to my stomach. I knew the earring was gone—washed down the drain with the bath water. A part of me died that day. I think of him often these days. No, I’ve thought of him often, everyday, since he went away. Funny—I still remember every inch of his body when I’m lying in my bed daydreaming, which is where I spend most of my life. Me, an old woman, remembering his body, how it felt, the way he smelled—the way my own body responded. I see him so clearly in his Navy uniform—so tall and so elegant and in my daydreams his deep voice keeps calling my name and his smile and outstretched arms bid me to come. Until I draw my last breath, I will love him. I wonder where he is.

      I wish I had the time for a cup of tea, the strong green tea she got for me.

      She said it was ‘good’ for me. I do not get many things these days that are good for me. I wonder how much money I have spent on vitamins that were ‘good for me?’ If they were so darn good for me, why did I have the brain attack?

      I heard her on the phone last night talking to one of her friends. She said, "I can’t take my eyes off her. She is damned determined to do as she wants. That’s well and good, but I’d have to pick up the pieces, in her case, her body. She thinks she is still able to do it her way. I’m not sure I am being paid enough on this job!"
My doctor insisted the woman came stay with me and I tried at first to have conversations with her. I told her how I’d been raised on Cape Cod, in Pocasset. How my father had been a fisherman. He had built a wooden boat for me when I was a little girl. One day he and my brother went fishing in the Atlantic for cod. My brother came back late that night-alone. My dad was only 42. My mother made wreaths at Christmas time out of the Princess pine and sold them. She tried to make ends meet. They rarely did. I kept the wooden boat a long time, long after Daniel was born. When I decided to sell the boat, Daniel cried. "Please Mama, don’t sell the boat." but I did. I don’t remember why.

      Finally..I stopped trying to talk to the impatient woman living in my home. All she ever said was ‘You’ve already told me that." I didn’t think so, but I did not particularly like talking to her anyway. Now all I say to her is "Yes" or No.’ It’s all the same to her, anyway

      It amazes me simply because one is old people think their hearing is gone. My doctors talk over my head to the woman when she takes me for an appointment—discussing me and my condition, like I’m not even there. I just sit there. I’ve learned a lot about my body just letting them discuss it over my head.

      I do not remember this house being so large, but then, she never allows me to go anywhere but my bedroom. I remember now, there’s my beautiful Queen Anne chair; there—next to the hearth, and there is Daniel’s rocking horse, over by the window. I’d die if anyone took that away. I can see him now, just a rocking and singing and laughing. My Daniel. I loved you so.

      "This where I found her when I returned from my errands, Sir. It’s impossilbe, she simply could not have climbed these stairs by herself. But there she was; sitting in a chair, over by the window. In her lap was the picture of her little red headed boy and a picture of a young Naval officer." The woman sobbed softly, hung her head and started down the stairs. 

© 2006 Lesney Anderson All Rights reserved