Tag: RDP

Life

Just A Trip to Walmart

Sally1 Comment

This post was originally written August 5, 2017 and has languished in my draft folder since then.

The father bellowing at the little boy in the Walmart parking lot was a bad start.

“JOHNNY,” he roared, “GIT YER A$$ OVER HERE.”

The open tailgate made me think that the father had been putting his purchases into the car. The boy skulking back from the cart corral looked to be about 8 or 9 years old. He was scowling. I would scowl, too, if someone spoke to me like that.

Walmart. I felt a snobbish “ugh” rising inside me.

Inside, the store was a disorderly mess.

“You can always tell when the students start coming back,” commented a woman looking at the same merchandise as me. “They trash the place.”

“It is a mess in here,” I agreed.

“I shop here every week,” she said. “Today is the worst I’ve seen it.”

I gathered my items and found the shortest line to check out.

The shortest line was not short.  When the elderly couple ahead of me finally got up to the register and the cashier was nearly finished scanning, their package of chicken needed a price-check.

“I’m sorry,” the man said, turning to me. I could barely see his eyes under the brim of Carhartt cap.

“No worries,” I said. “I’m not in a hurry.”

“Me and my wife got a carful of groceries already,” he said, nodding toward a hunched-over woman with blue-gray hair. “Frozen stuff prolly meltin’ in the car… but she forgot a few things so we come back in.”

A few things meant a cartful.

“I hope you aren’t far from home,” I said.

“Blenheim,” he said.

I knew that was about an hour away. In the middle of nowhere. Near Breakabeen.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.

The Walmart supervisor came to check on the chicken. She called on the radio to the meat department. “Anyone there gimme a price on some chicken?” she asked. I couldn’t hear the response because of her earpiece, but I didn’t need to — she announced it. “I gotta walk this over to the chicken department to get a price,” and off she walked.

I turned to the man behind me. “I’m sorry,” I said, even though I knew I had nothing to be sorry for.

“No problem,” he said. “I just moved here from Long Island. You should see the lines in their stores.”

So we waited.

“You could move over to a different line,” said the Carhartt man.

I looked at the line next to ours. It was moving faster, but I’m not one to jump ship. A burly man helped unload an elderly woman’s cart on the belt, but when he left with his bag, I realized they weren’t together. It was just a nice move.

The chicken department was on the far side of the store. I kept watching that direction to see if I saw the supervisor heading back.

The blue-haired wife mouthed “I’m sorry” to me. I smiled at her.

I made eye contact again with the man behind me. “I was in Europe this summer,” I told him. “Time doesn’t seem to matter as much there.”

“I know,” he said. “We could learn a lesson or two from them.”

The chicken was still MIA.

In the line next to me, a man holding a plant — his only purchase — was let ahead of a customer with a full cart. “Thank you SO much,” he said, enthusiastically. The woman who had let him pass just smiled.

I smiled, too.

There were nice people all around me.

In Walmart.

Finally chicken lady returned.

I told Long Island man, “Here she comes!”

“Hooray!” he said.

I felt like we should clap or something.

By the time I got to the parking lot, I had nearly forgot the unpleasant father-son interaction because I had seen and talked to so many nice people in the store that day.

 I could guess why I never posted this — too wordy. It’s a problem I have.

But the message to look for the nice people? Yes, I needed that today.

Be not conformed to the impatience and nastiness of the world, but be transformed by the goodness that’s right in front of you if you look for it. (a bastardization of Romans 12:2, but nonetheless true.)

Life · poetry

Tumbleweed

Sally2 Comments

Roll that dry weed across an empty road
Underscore my dry and empty feeling
So this, this is Wyoming, new abode
So far from home made this place appealing
I couldn’t speak about my need for healing
Although unbidden tears oft spoke for me
No one could understand my need to flee

Turning, turning, and running far away
How do I put this awful thing behind
I set my mind to one thing: learn to pray
So as to focus my intents and mind
To hold the world at arm’s length, yet be kind
Laudably said, “Wrong number!” when he called
Even as I hung up, shaking, I bawled

Tumbleweed, today’s RDP prompt, brings up one very specific memory — 1983 crossing the state border between Nebraska and Wyoming as my (then) husband and I moved there to start a new life.

This poem is a Rhyme Royal, which uses the scheme ababbcc, the lines having 10 syllables each i.e. (usually) iambic pentameter. Rhyme Royal is also sometimes known as the Troilus stanza.

The poem is also an acrostic for RUSSIAN THISTLE. Russian thistle (Salsola tragus or Salsola kali): The classic plant seen rolling in Western movies.

Alzheimer · Alzheimer's · dementia · elderly · family · Leaning In · Life · Writing

The Feeder’s Table

Sally2 Comments

This is a draft written February 6, 2015, pulled from the draft folder because of the RDP prompt word: tame

From across the room, I heard the man bellow, “NO!”

I had no clue what this was in reference to — he was across the room, after all, and I was attending to my mother in the midst of her ritual folding and unfolding of her mealtime protector (aka – bib) while waiting for the food to arrive.

A woman at his table shouted out, “SNOW!” It was snowing out.

She laughed at her rhyme, a dry cackle-y laugh, not because she was a witch, although it did make me think of one, but because she was very old and shriveled, and even her laugh bore witness to that.

“He said, ‘NO,’ and I said, ‘SNOW,'” she said gleefully, and it reminded me of the little “jokes” that first- or second-graders make, when the littlest thing sends them into gales of laughter.

However, the jokesters were across the room, while my mother sat at the feeder’s table, a table set aside for residents who need assistance with eating. She dines with five other ladies with dementia.

To my mother’s left is a dear lady that reminds me of a sparrow. Her voice is quiet and sing-songy. Sometimes she makes sense and sometimes she doesn’t, but I always have to listen very closely when she speaks. (Professor Trelawny)

Next to Sparrow is a woman with a chiseled angular face. (Professor McGonigle) She never speaks. She sits erect and stern, like a statue of a school matron staring across her desk at a wayward student.  However, I had met her many years before, when she was an OB nurse. She had come into my room after I had given birth to somebody because she wanted to tell me about my father.

“I remember your father’s first day at the hospital,” she said. “He came in toting a little black doctor’s bag. A little black bag!” She laughed when she told me the story, and her eyes twinkled with the delight of that memory. My father still has that black bag with its stethoscope, reflex hammer, otoscope, and other doctorly treasures.

To her left sits a white-haired lady whose dementia has a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde effect on her.  (Quirinius Quirrell) One minute she is sweet and the next she is spewing venom.

Next to Mrs. Hyde sits the newest diner at the feeder’s table. I’ll come back to her.

To Newby’s left is Mrs. Tiggywinkle, so designated because of her hedgehog hairdo.  Teens pay a lot of money and use a lot of product to get hair like hers, sticking straight up all over her head. My father has to repeatedly request that my mother’s hair get combed. Some of us are just stuck with wayward hair that no amount of combing can tame, and I suspect that’s the case with Mrs. Tiggywinkle.

The draft ended and I never finished it. I don’t remember who the person I called Newby is, so I can’t come back to her now. I don’t even remember the point of this story.

My mother died 9 months later.

Reading drafts and posts from that time in my life are interesting to me. I’m glad that I chronicled the journey.

Advice to anyone going through a stressful time: Write down what you see and hear and feel. It’s a gift to your future self.

Life

Temptation

Sally3 Comments

This post was in the draft folder and dated: 2016/05/06 at 1:14 pm. It came up when I searched my Draft Folder for the word “timing” — RDP’s prompt today.

I got a phone call yesterday that has been rattling around inside.

In a good way.

Kind of also in a bad way.

“Hi, Sally,” the voice said, “Do you have a minute to talk?”

“Sure,” I said. I was just washing dishes. They could wait.

It was the AD (Athletic Director) at Greene. I knew him. I had worked for him before, and, at one point, lived two doors away.

“We’re looking for a varsity swim coach for both the boys and girls next year. Our contract requires that we do an internal search to fill coaching positions which we’ve done, but your name keeps coming up. We would love it if you would come back to coach,” he said.

He went on to do some salesmanship, telling me how they’ve updated the timing system, put in a new heating system, refurbished the diving boards. “We’d really like you to come back. You did a great job before, and we’d love to have you as part of our swim program again.”

Oh my goodness.

The dangling carrot was so appealing.

I love coaching. Oh, not every minute of it, as my children could tell you. But the overall reward of being involved with young people, especially of the teenage variety, is incredible.

Several years ago I wrote a post during a time when I thought I was done coaching called “MomSwimCoach.”  It’s now up at Laura Brown’s Makes You Mom site [no longer active], and is about a one of the greatest gifts I ever received — a quilt with squares made by one team of swimmers.

But this temptation — to have the whole swim program and run with it — so so tempting.

I knew the answer.

“Thank you so much for thinking of me,” I told the AD, “but my mother died in November and I’ve been taking care of my father since. I couldn’t commit to you the time needed.”

We finished our conversation with pleasantries, but, as I said, it rattled around.

I went for a walk, mulling it over.

Temptation comes when something

And there ends the draft.

If my draft had shoulders, I would grab hold of them and shake them. “When something WHAT?” I would demand.

It’s funny that the prompt word — timing — was triggered by my reference to timing systems for swim meets, but the bigger broader story has to do with the timing of an opportunity. I’m in the same boat today. I have an opportunity, and it’s a great opportunity — but I have to weigh it all out. The timing is questionable. I should write the details in a blog post and save it in the draft folder for 8 – 10 years.

For the record, I have zero regret about not pursuing the swim coach job. In fact, I had totally forgotten about it until this showed up after searching my draft folder. I made the right choice back then. Now for a repeat performance.

family · Grief · Life

Terrible

Sally6 Comments

The RDP prompt for today is twelve. I searched my draft folder and found this incomplete post that had last been edited in February 2016. My mother died in November 2015. I wrote so many posts following her death. I think it was my way of untangling the knot—and it helped.

This post was never completed. When I read it this morning, a flood of memories engulfed me.

Here’s the post which I called “Terrible.” At the end, I’ll try to complete it — though the 10 intervening years surely have changed where I was going with the original.

THE ORIGINAL

The one nurse said, “Well, I guess you’ve never seen a dying person before.”

She was matter-of-fact. Tart. A little smug. Definitely too cheerful.

The other nurse was different. Compassionate. Caring. Gentle.

“Can I do anything for you?” she asked every time she checked on my mother. “Can I get you anything?”

With twelve hour shifts for the nurses, we mostly saw only these two.

When I would ask the first nurse

THE 2026 COMPLETION

When I would ask the first nurse for anything, she did her job, but with so little compassion that I ended up avoiding her. Truth be told, today I can’t even picture her.

Forgettable — that’s what she was. I’m glad I didn’t spend time dwelling on her.

What I remember about my mother’s final hospital stay are definitely the kindnesses:

The other nurse bringing food in for us.

The doctor who called a family meeting. She began with these words, “Mom is very sick, and she isn’t going to get better.” She went on to talk about the fact that modern medicine could keep her alive, but we should think about what was best for her. One of my brothers still refers to her as “the doctor that told us to kill Mom.” It’s that dark famiy sense of humor that we have. I have no doubt in my mind that it was the right decision.

A group of women from the church came to the hospital room and sang to my mother. They had all been in the choir with her, and now they sang for her. It still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. Out-of-tune warbly voices of older women joined in some of the most beautiful music I’ve heard.

My siblings and I gathered around the bed, each telling my mother that we loved her. My youngest brother told my mother that it was okay for her to go. I had heard that it can be important to say that, and he said it, all the while rubbing her foot as he stood at that end of the bed.

I feel pity for that nurse whom I had labeled “Terrible.” Her words, I guess you’ve never seen a dying person before, are so hollow.

I don’t know what prompted them, but today, I would take her hands in mine, and say, “I hope that some day, you can gather with your family around the bed of someone you love very much, and you can be with them when they pass. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Terrible vs. beautiful. I’ll remember the beautiful.