Girl! Get Me That Chicken!

Monday noontimes at the nursing home I got to feed Auntie Fran and as I waited for her to open her mouth, and chew, and swallow if she felt like swallowing that day, I’d watch what went on around us.Mostly I watched Edna, tall and big-boned, with wispy hair.“Girl! What time is it, girl?” she asked me once. “That poor soul,” she added, indicating another with a nod of her head. "She’s touched, you know!” I really liked Edna. “I’m going out for a smoke, where’s my purse?” she would say, just as if she could leave that locked Alzheimer unit, just walk on out whenever she liked. She carried that small black purse with her everywhere. Once I saw her bring it to the dining room and put it in the trash. Later in the meal she became agitated."Where’s my tea?“ she kept saying.“Right here,” said the nurse’s aide.“No! My TEA! ” she exclaimed, looking now under the table.“Is this it?” I asked, going to the trash and fetching forth her purse. “Yes!”Later, she spilled her actual tea and saw the erratic shape the spill made on the tiles. “Girl!” She hailed me. “There’s a chicken on the floor here!”In time, Edna fell permanently quiet, as sooner or later they all fell quiet on this ward.She was 98  by the time she died and to tell teh truth she was almost  bald. The wisps didn’t look like they had ever grown on her actual scalp. She had that big old dress like the oldest of my old people: two ancient great aunties born in the 1860s. She had that salty way of theirs too, and when  she finally died I cut out her obituary and carried it in my wallet til smudged into illegibility and came apart like kleenex.