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Poems |
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My Grandmother at 90Nanny is small now, and frail, and her remembering is all done by others. She calls the nurses "Cookie," and also her companions (paid to visit five times a week since the aides started saying she seemed hostile). Now she has toys in a basket beside her bed -- a beach ball, a rabbit with floppy ears, a costumed bear, and in her wheel- chair on our way to lunch she sings a cheerful song without a tune, ta-daa, ta- daa, ta-daa. While I cut up meatloaf for her she tells me a story brightly: "I didn't like it, and she said she was there, but I had so much to do, I raised holy hell." She needs both hands to lift her glass of Coke slowly to her lips, and she smiles at me prettily as she does. Later she is angry -- doesn't want to stay in her room, doesn't want to sit by the nurses. She stares at me, terror in her eyes, and calls out softly, "Help me, Ruth! Help me!" None of us know who Ruth was.
April, 2000 |