A Monumental Day in the Retirement Home

Monday had a special feeling from the beginning. This was the day we were getting vaccinated, all of us here, residents and staff, except for the energetic young mother who cleans my apartment on Tuesdays and Charlie down the hall who limps every step of the miles he walks up and down the halls every day. (“Well, we have to keep moving.”) Walt has already had covid so he has to wait a little longer before he can get vaccinated. Patty is allergic to polysorbates, the “vehicle” that carries the real stuff in the vaccine. (I know so much about what it is because I asked Google.)

When the physical therapist came, I was reluctant, but PTs are notably oblivious to excuses, and she insisted that I could stand on one foot at a time for 30 seconds with my hands in the air, try to kick myself in the rear thirty times, jump straight up off the couch with my arms crossed over my chest, ride the step machine for several imaginary miles and still be able to answer the doorbell when someone comes for me to get shot.

So I did, and afterward in the dining room for lunch, I ordered chocolate ice cream to reward myself. The stab in my shoulder had been so quick and painless that by then I could barely remember it.

But don’t go yet. I have to tell you that I sold my house. That same day. In the aftermath of all that physical exertion and the anti-climactic prick on my shoulder and the tummy full of ice cream, I sat in suspense with my computer on my knees, waiting for a message, and just before suppertime I got it—a long, wordy, careful set of promises and demands to tell me that somebody loves this house and wants this house enough to pledge the contents of their bank account and 30 years of sweat and devotion to get it.

The message was clear. They did. They do! They want my house. They filled in all the blanks and signed in the proper spaces. And I am happy, because now I can afford to live a while longer.

But then the breath suddenly went out of my chest. My house was gone. My home.

I went to the realtor.com site, asked for houses in the vicinity and was relieved to find it still posted. But the realtors had done something tricky. The picture was still there but in the corner there was a little message, “Pending.” And when I clicked on the picture, I met resistance. It seems that, without some intention to interfere in the sale of this house, I cannot go in and see the rooms.

Is that fair?

Is that polite, after all these years?

I called one of my sons to tell him about this affront, and he said we should have made the right to drop in on our house for visits a contingency in the contract.

On the way to dinner I repeated what I said to myself when I was packing to leave and throwing away all those sentimental things I didn’t have space for anymore. “In the end you can’t take it with you.”

A woman at a round table at least the required six feet from me raised her voice a bit to ask me, “Are you new here?” I admitted the number of weeks I had been here, most of that time in quarantine. So then she asked where I came from and I told her, and she said that her husband used to work for a certain well-known company about 200 miles from there. I asked her how long they had been at the retirement home, and she turned and relayed the question to her husband and then said, “About six months.”

My dinner came and I concentrated on not dribbling tomato soup on my white shirt, until she turned to me again and said, “Are you new here? I don’t think we’ve met.” So we did a complete rewind of the previous conversation.

Now I am remembering what I often forget. Memory makes the past a present reality, and I can still enjoy everything I’ve had and treasured, so long as I remember. Oh, Lord, how I want my memory!

And the well-known doctor on television said just tonight that doing a new thing keeps the brain sharp.

It turns out an unsympathetic PT might be the key to everything.