WRITING MY WAY OUT OF THE CORNER

         It's lurking in the back of my closet, dark and threatening. It is standing on its edge. It hasn't fallen over in the year since I moved it from its spot against a wall in my office. Its legs are in the corner of the closet, waiting for a witch or fairy to cast a spell and set them walking again. I'm not sure that I dare; it might attack the table that took its place in the dining area. THAT table came from Morgan's mother's kitchen when she moved from her Victorian to a retirement village.

         She wanted us to take her fine old dining room set, an old, large dark piece of furniture complete with a set of six or eight chairs that she felt was very valuable. It would have gone well in our old house. That miserable abode received early morning sun and that was its quota of light for the day. The dining room was dark. The table would have matched the dark walls and dim light perfectly. This house is light; her kitchen table was light and so it was our choice, even though it only has four chairs.

         Thus it came to pass that our old dark round table was sent into exile. We bought it in 1977 from Sears. There were no chairs to go with it. The seats came from restaurants or thrift shops, if not neighbors' trash. The blue spot of oil paint came courtesy of Morgan the artist. Prussian blue was a favorite color of hers. There was an extension but it must have gone out with the trash when we moved.

         The dog and I moved the new table and chairs here in early July 2000. The next week Morgan cleaned her other valuables out of her mother's house, brought them home, hung the paintings and put the other things away and then went into delirium, never to pull out.

         This coming Monday is her birthday. She would have been 57. I went back and read over writings done last year at this time. "The Memorial Day weekend was a big time opening for the weather. Thunder, lightning and heavy downpours set the prelude for a hailstorm on Monday." This year it is sunny, breezy and cool. "Through it all I kept my appointed non-rounds. I did nothing about the bay window that will not close fully; November seems a far way off now." November still seems a far way off, but this year the plans are more grandiose.

         The art room is to become my office. This room is to become a guest room. File cabinets are to be moved in from the garage. The living room will become a cozy haven, and I am sure to grow tomatoes as big as cantaloupes. The exiled table can become what every office has, a conference table. It may have to sit in the middle of my one room office unless I want to convert my bedroom into the firm's library and sleep on the projected sectional that will be in the living room. That seems a bit extreme, but a conference table does seem a must.

         Morgan's assisted living facility had one. It was in its own room. I took a seat at it last June First. My memory is that it was a large rectangular piece of light-colored wood that could have seated eight or ten. I think there were only five around it that day. I was on one side; the others were spread around the ends and other side. We were discussing THEIR patient and MY wife's progress.

         I was told how pleasant and sweet Morgan was, and how she always apologized for the trouble she thought she was causing. A nutritionist, a caseworker and a nurse spoke of her progress at acclimating to life at B------L and asked for my thoughts. I should have quoted from my writing: "Over the weekend, without activities and physical therapy, she barely strayed from bed and seemed to be perpetually dozing. Her body was in this world, but her mind seemed to have moved on. Her feet were swollen, but she seemed at peace. She had lost the fear which kept her awake, and had little desire to eat."

         I should have told them of her birthday, when she would barely talk to her mother and cousin on the phone and only could smile at the squeeze bear I brought her. I should have screamed, "Who are we kidding? Maybe she should come home to die!” Instead I parroted another phrase from that same writing.

         "Tuesday the physical therapist, returned and had her pedaling away on a bicycle-like contraption, and then lifting her legs with weights on them. That night she was asleep when I came again, but this was the sleep of effort. She woke as I left, complaining of this or that and continued complaining yesterday. She is still of this world." I was thanked for my insights. The meeting ended, as most meetings do, without permanent conclusions being drawn and with comity abounding.

         In the meantime, the patient had been rushed to the emergency room of the hospital that same morning we were meeting. She had fallen in her room from lack of oxygen, having taken off her cannula to use the bathroom. One topic discussed was reinforcing Morgan’s mind with the knowledge that the tube could reach that area of her room. What optimism! I had just written two days before, “Yet the bluebird, the goldfinch and Susie's dead mice mean nothing to her but that this man she knows and loves is talking at her. Time is becoming a foreign concept to her.” In the end, it did not matter, she never returned from the hospital.

         Planning and remembering are heavy loads to do alone, but I manage. I suppose I can use my current dining room table for conferences. It overlooks the field, the trees and the neighbor’s horse in its paddock. I can leave the blue-spotted table in limbo. Maybe I will put it out by the road, with its legs next to it, with a sign hung on it reading “FREE”. Someone else can have an important conference around it.

         Tables, conferences, weather, birthdays, it’s all part of the memory mix that has painted me into a corner. I am now writing my way out of it. Bear with me. On my NEW table I found a folder describing Long Term Care Insurance. My friend gave it to me. I guess she worries about my future. I can see my future also; it makes me shudder. A ward from the State walks into the conference room to meet the geriatric professionals to discuss the madman who is scribling all over the walls, trying to write his way back home.

Valatie, May 25, 2002