Tess is 92. She lives at the end of my street. I've been taking her up to Mitchell's for dinner every weekend for the last 6 months or so, to get her out of the house. We would start dinner with a bowl of popcorn, because she really enjoyed it. She would even bring a baggie with her, to take any left-over popcorn with her, "to feed the birds" she'd say with a wink. We have a lot of fun, and she always quizzes me about the women in (or not in) my life. "So how is Tina? You know she wants to get her hooks into you, don't you?", She warned. "You can't be so demanding with So-and-so. Give her room to breath, and let her come to you. Otherwise, you'll chase her away.", she prophesied. Sadly, I did, indeed, chase So-and-so away. "Shawn, you waited too long to find a woman! All the good ones are taken already." she told me once with stinging intuition. "If I was 50 years younger, I'd teach you to dance" She cracks me up more when she tries to hook me up with the barmaids. "What about that one? She's curvy, don't you think?, she said regarding one voluptuous server. She's a pisser.
We didn't go out last weekend because she's in the hospital. I found out from her neighbor, Lucy, that Tess had fallen into her bathtub Friday night, and couldn't get out. She spent the night in her tub! Luckily, Tess and Lucy have a code such that each morning, Tess would turn on the living-room light, just to let Lucy know that she's OK. Saturday morning, the light didn't go on, so Lucy called Tess' brother and he found her. They had to convince her to go to the hospital, but she finally did go. Lucy told me that they suspected a stroke, but weren't sure yet.
I visited her Sunday night. I brought some Mitchell's popcorn for her, which lit her face right up! She seemed fine, and alert, but it seemed that her brain skipped a beat every now and then. Like a needle on a record skipping over a few grooves in the song. The nurses couldn't tell me anything about her condition, since I wasn't family. Tina came with me, and Tess didn't recognize her. I asked her if she was taking any drugs, but she said that she wasn't aware of any. I had thought, from talking with her, that she was on morphine or something.
I hope she's able to get better. The funny thing is, she's told me that she's ready to go. Most of her family are gone, and most of her friends. She just feels that she's lived long enough, and wouldn't mind moving on. In any case, for now, I enjoy her company, and hope she gets well.
There's my last (I mean most recent) lead wipe! I look forward to doing those again, though it may be a year or more from now.
Here's the crew that worked on this job: Junior, me, Dennis (no nick-name yet) Bruiser, W Squared, and The Boss. Junior and I were the splicers. Dennis and W Squared were ragboys. Bruiser was our instructor, technical specialist, and main critic, and The Boss was the boss.
