Home to none, July 2009
Ernestine doesn't want to leave the hospital. She can walk around the unit nine times without stopping, she can make toast and dress herself, and when no one is looking, she waltzes around her room to music that only she can hear. She does not want to go back to the farm.
He is still there. Like the rusty combine behind the barn. He won't move into town. He eats three times a day, shits every two, and sleeps more than half the day away. The thought of moving makes him mad enough to load his shotgun and blow them both to hell. What's the point of anything, he asks.
Before her hands went, Ernestine could play a whole cord of fiddle tunes without pausing. Waltzes, reels, and jigs flowed into each other without a pause. Aurora borealis. Now she listens to the radio for company. She can name all the name-that-tune songs on CFCW, but she's too shy to call.
Tomorrow he will drive her home and later, after the supper dishes are put away and he is sleeping in the calloused palm of his leather chair, Ernestine will dance alone on her shiny-smooth kitchen floor.
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4 comments:
What a neat story Michael. I could just picture everything you wrote. What a neat lady.
i think thats a beautiful image - this woman still dancing to the music in her head.
Sad but also quite beautiful
I agree with panda and the hungry pixie — a beautiful, vivid and moving picture. The photograph's beautiful, too. I'm always greatly impressed by your ability to see colour, and your awareness of light.
Here's a story that was sent to me by email. The author has requested anonymity.
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Mary lived in a traditional Irish cottage,thatched roof,open fire,concrete floor, stone walls,etc. There was little in the way of comfort and she cooked on the open fire, got water from a tap in the yard and only went into town on Saturday evening to go to Mass.
Mary raised three sons, one died in his teens, one went to Australia and the youngest lived at home as he was backward and simple, her husbands words, not mine.
When I met Mary she was in her late 70s, she had come into the nursing home from the hospital because she had broken her hip. It was thought that Mary would stay with us long term as she was deemed unfit to look after her self or her husband and son and she wanted to stay with us. Her husband wanted her home, he was quite an aggressive, dominant man, who put the fear of God into some of my nurses.!!
The husband used to visit once a week, coming into town on his tractor, the only transport they had, he never brought the son to visit and Mary was always asking to see him.
Mary was herself (simple) uneducated,could not read or write, but she had a wonderful gift, she had the voice of an angel. Mary would sing in her room, to herself, at full volume.
We never did get her to sing for the residents, she was too shy, but we used to stand in the hall out side her room to listen to her wonderful singing.
Mary did go home for a short while, her husband came and took her one day. Mary fell in the field a few weeks later, broke her other hip and died from complications.
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Thank-you for this. Beautiful.
And thanks friends for the other comments.
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