Writings from the heart, this week

So many writings, and so much more depth,
I wrote this last week about my mother who has dementia and is hallucinating towards her end at an assisted living place.... It broke my heart, but my readers have called it a blessing--both to her and to me...
So, we never know what entities will bless our work as it goes out into the universe... and the bottom line is that I can always say simply, "Thank You."

Good bye
By Christine Callaghan

Her husband is standing by her bed. He’s slouched against the wall, his khaki green work pants and that white tee shirt with the ¾ moon grease stain she could never get out, hanging on his skinny body. By the silly grin on his face she knows that he is about to tell her a joke or sing her a kid’s song.

“With his hands in his pockets and his pockets in his pants,” he pauses to nod at her to join in, their voices blend for the rest, “See the little fishies do a hoochie-coochie dance!” It’s naughty, the way he wiggles his ass at the end. She knows he knows it by the way he laughs.

Her mama would have slapped her face and shoved him out the door. “That’s nasty, don’t you ever do that again!” She ducks her face and grins into her lap as her mother slams the door shut and locks it. As if – as if anything her mama could do would keep her away from the deliciousness of what his laugh promises.

“Alma, Alma,” her mother chastises her from the chair by the window. “Be a good girl. There’ll be plenty of time for boys like him. Boys like him only want to get in your pants.”
“But mama, I want him to!”

Her mama stands up and takes two steps towards the bed, her arm raised to slap. “Be good I said, or you’ll be sorry!”

Alma cringes in her hospital bed waiting for the sting of it. When she looks up, mama’s gone. “Mama?” Her voice is so thin and brittle she can hardly hear herself.

The nurse comes in and asks her if she needs to go to the bathroom. “No, I’m fine,” she chirps. But she’s drenched in her own pee, sitting in a puddle of it. She plucks at the blanket trying to cover it up.

The whole room stinks like piss and the nurse breathes through her mouth as she coaxes Alma into the wheelchair so she can change the bed again. “Just push the button on the end of the cord when you need to go honey. You know that. Just push that ole button and I’ll be right here to help.”

“That’s what they all say,” Alma snarls.

Her husband’s back again, trying to cop a feel off the nurse’s ass. But she’s too fast for him and whips around the bed changing the sheets as if he wasn’t even there. He’s thirty years older now and overweight, his belly hanging over the top of those red and yellow polyester pants. Alma thinks the gold Cadillac is probably out by the curb. She knows better than to let him know she sees. She knows really well how to play this part.

She shakes her long, curly black hair off her face and steps out of the wheelchair. She runs her hand down his back and presses her body into his. “Honey? Buddy?” For a second she sees how swollen his face is, like it was the day before he died, but she uses every bit of her will to force him back into the boy with the khaki pants.

She takes his hand and puts it on her own ass. “It’s you and me, Buddy, just you and me,” she tells him swaying into his crotch.

The nurse returns, having dumped the wet sheets, she wants to get the old lady back into bed. But she’s not in the wheelchair; she’s crumpled up on the floor between the wall and the bed, soaked again.

Alma’s already in the car (not the Caddy, the black Hudson), and she’s scooching across the broad front seat while Buddy slams the passenger door. When he slips behind the wheel she’ll be as close to him as she can get, her full skirt pulled up just enough so he can admire her legs. She’s got great legs.

Mama waves from the front porch as they drive away.