A conversation 12/2/05

"Hey Mom,"
"Oh honey, it's so good to hear your voice!"
"So, you catching up on your Soaps?"
"No, your father left me the newspaper -- the New York Times -- and I've been sitting here reading that."
"Oh wow, that sounds fun. So Dad said they were keeping you in for more tests. Have they done them yet?"
"No. They haven't been in yet, they said sometime today, sometime this afternoon and gosh, I can't remember the name of what it is, an MRA or something..."
"An MRI?"
"I don't know. They said, but everyone was getting so upset, I just can't remember."
"Well it's good to get it done and find out. How are you doing otherwise?"
"Oh, I'm fine, really. I mean, it was quite a shock to have the doctor come in and tell me I'd had a stroke--two of them. 'At some point in the past', he said. Well! But they have started me on aspirin, just like your father, and that's supposed to help a lot."
"Oh good, so you're feeling fine?"
"Oh yes, I'm fine. And the doctor, he's like the old kind of doctors, really very gentle and warm."
"That's good. So what happened exactly, I mean, do you have arteries that are like clogged pipes or what?"
"Well they don't know exactly. They tested the veins, the ones that are in the sides of your neck, you know, and there was no plaque, the blood is getting to my head alright, but they tested the rest of me and they found that on my left foot, that I've lost a bit of feeling, just a little. So everything is fine."
"That's a relief."
"And they took my blood pressure and it was where it should be, 140 over 80, but then after they gave me the news, well, it shot up, 170 over something."
"Sounds like that was from hearing the news."
"Well yes. It upset your father quite a bit. I'm just not the kind of person who lets things show. I never have. What am I going to do, be one of these people who breaks down and carries on? Ooohhwooowwwouuuh. No. I've always kept it in."
"Hm, well I'm glad everything is OK."
"Oh yes, well I better go,"
"oh. OK..."
"I love you honey, it was so good to see you at Thanksgiving. And Grace."
"Yeah, it was a fun time. I love you too."

A conversation 11/29/05

"Hey mom, is everything ok?"
"Hi honey, I'm sorry to bother you at work, I just wanted to call and tell you that Duncan is OK."
"oh?"
"Yes, they definitely think it's the thyroid."
"oh. That's good news,"
"Well your father was very upset and I'm so relieved! I thought, you know, that he was dying."
"Yeah, well it didn't look too good from what you were saying, but honestly, he seemed fine when I was there. Walking around and not limping or anything. He's a good dog."
"He's a wonderful dog and it would be horrible for your father."
"I can relate, I mean, Grace is no spring chicken."
"Oh, but she's so lively! Getting into the doggie doughnuts!"
"Oh gosh, mom, that was awful, I hope you guys weren't too angry."
"She's plucky! Tugging that box out from under the chair and throwing off the weight on top of it! Coming home to find those rawhides all over the place! I'm sure it must have just scared Duncan to have that going on."
"Well I'm very sorry, the box had all those travel stickers on it."
"Oh that's fine, darling. Well I'll let you get back to work."
"Ok, thanks for calling. Tell Dad that's great about DUncan."
"I will."

And a Memory.
I am lying on an upholstered cushion, the one underneath the dormer window in my room, my first room, the nursery in our old house, the first house I lived in. The doctor is examining me.

He had a stethascope, it was cold, and he was perfunctory, going about his business, touching me. His hands are warm. He is old, he wears glasses and is bald. He had his black bag, an old leather bag that opened like a purse at the top.

I am lying down and his hand when it closes around my leg or my arm takes up most of it. I am looking at him, his eyes magnified behind his glasses, looking as he's listening to his stethascope, his big head, his huge hands on my leg or arm and holding the stethascope.

Behind him is Mom. She is wearing a nightgown. She has brown hair and blue eyes and she has a band in her hair. She is watching, behind the doctor, and she smiles when she sees me looking back, but she doesn't smile when she is watching the doctor. They are talking. Mostly it is the doctor who is talking.

She is always there, watching. My memory of her, she hasn't changed from then, it is Mom, but yet it must be 40 years ago and she would be younger then than I am now.

One day when I was in High School, I was walking past that house and it had a For Sale sign in the front yard, so I knocked on the front door. "I used to live here," I told the woman who answered, "I was wondering, would it be OK if I came in and looked around?"

The woman was fine. The house was so small from how I had remembered it. There had been changes -- the back porch had been enclosed and the walls knocked out to make a Family Room. The family room had lots of macrame hanging planters. My dad's patio, the one I remember being outside with him while he was building, all overgrown and rotted.

Upstairs, the nursery was off my parent's room. It was now paneled with rough siding stained a grey-blue. The ceiling is oppressively low. Where the crib had been, now bunk beds.

The seat under the dormer window was still there. The cushion, the curtains, the bedspreads, all had one of those Americana patterns in red white and blue. An etched pattern in black of chugging turn-of-the century horseless carriages or flying machines, men with handlebar mustaches intently balanced on large-spoked bicycles and ladies holding onto their big hats...