Tom wheels his wife Anna in. I’m on the other end of the assisted-eating lunchroom with my dad. Tom has an apartment over in the Independent Living wing of the community. He might eat other meals with Anna but he doesn’t eat lunch with her. I’ve never actually talked to Tom, never said a word to him even though he’s been here since the beginning. He has taken a seat next to Anna, who warbles in her fey way. Bubbly, playful, somewhat intelligible. I thought I heard her say, “Shiny.”
After a few minutes pass, Tom gets up.
“Enjoy your lunch,” he says to his wife, and he leaves. He has a shirt on that looks a lot like one my dad used to wear, and which I have since appropriated. It’s a dark blue plaid with yellow and orange accents. I wear it here sometimes and I wonder if Tom sees me wearing it and thinks to himself, “Hey, I’ve got a shirt like that.”
I am deep in this world. To leave it will be like a reincarnation but some part of me will always be here—will be left behind. Am I depressed, or am I just sad and refusing to fake being in any other mindset or state? There is an answer. If I live long enough I will find it out.
I look out into the hall to see Lillian being wheeled along by someone who must be one of her sons. She’s shoeless. Her shoes, it appears, were left here as a result of breakfast.
At 12:05 it’s just me, my dad, and Anna in here. Oh—speak of the devil, here comes Bob being wheeled in.
“I just about….”
“Just about what?” asks the CNA who has brought him in.
“I just about stepped in a hole!” he says.
The CNA shakes her head and leaves to get someone else to bring to lunch. Bob’s voice is rough, gravelly, garbled. Sister Shiny walks in, leaves something in the sink.
I used to write a lot more about this place but it’s gotten hard to see the point. Anna OG, Bob OG, Sr Shiny OG. Nurse Cheryl Ragsdale is working today. She is here only part-time. I don’t know if she’s an OG but she’s been a nurse a long time and has the stories to prove it. She worked the VA at Jefferson Barracks way back when, and those vets were known to throw punches around, even at their nurses.
Bob is slurring.
“Huh?” he says. “Talk to me.”
He sounds like he’s been to the dentist, like his mouth is numb. But he’s still talking! Earlier my brother was telling my dad goodbye and my dad didn’t say anything, he didn’t even look my brother’s way.
“Tomorrow, huh?” asks Bob, picking up on a conversation from the hall, thinking that the words are being directed to him.
This is why I’m in the lunch room. Panning for gold, looking for an end to this story. Except it isn’t my story to write. Keep back, hold vigil, write it down. [12:12]
Father Volk is the next to arrive. Another OG. In his signature beanie. Someone rings the bell.
CNA Sierra brings Jackie in. Another OG! My dad is not the only one hanging on.
Jackie looks at me and says, “Hi, Ken.”
“Hi, Jackie.”
She said the same thing to me earlier in the Bird Room. I thought, “My name’s not Ken.” But I just said hello to her. She can give me any name she wants. It’s just nice to have her say hello to me. I like knowing that seeing me sparks some kind of recognition in her.
Bob coughs.
“You what?” he says. When he gets no reply he says, “Huh? Hey! Answer me!”
“Who are you, was it, goes travelin’ out there?” asks Anna in response.
Father Volk raises his empty coffee cup, waiting for someone to come along and fill it. Jackie is staring me down. She is wearing a yellow sweatshirt. [12:18]
It’s my parents’ 56th wedding anniversary today. Tom and Anna might have them beat. Maybe also Bob and his wife Pat. I’m curious. Eventually I’ll be able to find that out.
I’m telling myself I have the capacity for this, these visits. I tell myself that I have the capacity for writing up this account but that I don’t have the patience for much else beyond this. Is that true? Or is it just an excuse, a line, a defense?
Bob is snoring pretty good all of a sudden. Paul is also in here now. I’m actually not sure how long Paul’s been here. If he keeps to his room, and if he’s always been in the assisted-eating dining room, then it’s conceivable that he could have been in Dammert all this time and I only discovered him by way of my dad’s move into the assisted-eating dining room last year. [12:23]
I hear Ron’s wife Diane in the hall talking to Cheryl. Was Ron here when my dad arrived? I’m not sure. Their arrivals were very close in time to one another, perhaps simultaneous.
This is the last page of this notebook. Genevieve is in here today. At my dad’s table. She goes by “Jen” or is it “Gen”? It’s the first time I have seen her in this lunch room instead of the other one. She’s 100.
It’s like observing a migration. Who appears in the assisted-eating dining room for the first time, making their way over from the “main” Dammert dining room, where the residents don’t need anyone to watch or to help them eat? Helen (Pat’s mom) is also here. And Sister Caroline. Both OGs. The only other resident in this dining room right now is Marie, who I group in with Paul. Not just because they sit at the same table but because I am not sure how long she’s been in Dammert. She could also have been here the whole time and I never had her on my radar.
A couple of trays have arrived. I’m trying to think of Helen’s last name. She’s not Helen Dooley (that’s the mayor’s mom, also an OG). And it’s not Helen Thompson, who was here when my dad got here but who has since passed away. It’ll come to me. [12:41]
Gen is also giving me a stare. I hide behind my father, who is slumped, who has taken his medicine. Who is wearing a blue shirt that matches his blue eyes in the assisted eating dining room of Dammert Care Facility, part of the Benedictine Living Community in Belleville, St. Clair County, Illinois, U.S.A., on planet Earth in the Milky Way galaxy of the Big Bang Universe at this very moment in time.
Sister Shiny walks in through the far door. Anna catches her attention.
“Do you re-mem-member me?” Anna asks.
“I do,” says Sister Shiny.
“Well, I was thinking,” says Anna, “while you’re here….”
*Postscript: Bob Lanaghan passed away three weeks later. His obit does not mention how long he and Pat were married.
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