Workshop Dec. 15

I will have copies tomorrow since it is up late. Somethings are harder to convey than others, and in the process you sometimes lose your focus. Feel free to let me know if i lost mine somewhere within this piece. I would love to know what it means to you. Comments, criticisms, and corrections will be much appreciated. Thanks.

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“Fuck your mudda, fuck your fadda, and shit the pippy”

I walk over to Josephine to give her a warm Friday evening greeting. The woman stands about four foot, six inches tall with thick, shoulder length, pearly white hair. She has warm blue eyes and a half-toothless smile that is so genuine and sweet. I can’t help but reach out for a hug every time I see her. And every time she kindly welcomes me.

“Get off me you crazy bastard or I’ll break your ass!”

I embrace her regardless and laugh as she starts to cry and whine, begging for God to save her. She may be obnoxiously oblivious but as far as I know, nothing is funnier than seeing a short, plump, 85 year old woman ask for Jesus’ mercy, then proceed to curse him and his “mudda” out.

I pulled her down to sit in a chair in front of me. She’s vulgar, but never malicious, never puts up a fight, and always loves some attention. I begin to comb out her hair and braid it, as she sits whistling You Are My Sunshine, swinging her feet, that don’t even touch the floor, back and forth, back and forth.

Josie is probably the cutest woman in the entire facility. Unlike many, she gets family visitors, so it is important for her to always look nice, be groomed and clean. They like to see her taken care of and receiving that extra bit of love, she needs it. Personally, her explicit outbreaks instantly become 100 times more amusing when she has French pigtails on each side and a “World’s Best Grandma” sweater on.

Hands busy, I look around to see if anyone is getting ready to fall or eating inedibles. A room full of wheelchairs, a sea of sadness, everyone lost in their own thoughts. How many memories must be floating amongst us, and how many regrets creeping around? I can’t help but constantly put myself in their shoes and fear the ambiguous paths life takes.

When thinking about security, we automatically thought of money. Every problem imaginable was handcuffed with a dollar sign. Society’s members constantly clash. Ignorance is negated by education, but diplomas aren’t free. Children grow up neglected, engaging in transgression. We should have been home more, and cherished their company, but time is money. Many are slowly dying with rare cases of everything, things uncommon and unknown. Relationships are torn by heartbreak and healthcare, but still, the best doctor means the big bucks. Divorce has painted our world in all colors alike. If only she could have wanted less. If only he could have offered more. If only they weren’t so blind. Monetary love exists. Even our Creator has been robbed of our loyalty. God gives and forgives, man gets and forgets. Only when he makes it big, and is asked how, will he reply “by the will of God.” Fiscal faith is ubiquitous. Those who say money isn’t everything never had enough to realize its power. Those who have it wouldn’t give it up for the world. That was certain.

Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon resonates through the room. I try to line up everyone’s wheelchairs in front of the 52” flat screen that was recently installed. The ones with glasses and cataracts go in the front row, and the hard of hearing right behind them. The almost deaf and blind are in the middle and the relentless in the back. They’re the ones that push and crash their chairs like bumper cars into other’s, crushing already fragile fingers between the wheels. I can’t afford injuries on my watch, so I set them aside.

Movie night begins as all eyes are glued to Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. I grab a seat next to Eulalia Torres. She always sits in the back and just observes. She spends her time learning about everyone and her surroundings, yet there is so little we know about her. She is from Puerto Rico and completely spoke Spanish. There was even a Spanish nurse hired to the floor just so someone could communicate with her. One night Ms. Torres fell out of bed and ended up in the hospital. She came back perfectly fine, with one minor surprise. She now spoke fluent English. Since then Ms. Torres has not gone back to speaking Spanish. Whether she knew English all along and was hiding it for 6 years, or suddenly became an example of a medical miracle, no one knows. With her, no one ever knows.

She looked me up and down about four or five times, staring at my eyes and then my hands. Reaching over she grabbed my right hand while muttering under her breath.

“You play numbers? The lottery?”

I nodded no, as her black beady eyes studied my face. She ran her fingers along my palm, then closed my fist, opened my palm again, tracing the lines. Her wide toothless grin emerged as her eyes reduced to slits, and she laughed

“1,0,9,4,”

There is no security in life. Not with your belongings, not with your loved ones, not even with your sanity. Everything is up for grabs at some point. You never can truly appreciate the simplicities life has to offer until you see what humans turn into when they become deprived. No kind of money can save you. No check can guarantee a strong, loyal family, and no Visa can acquire quality of life. Money can ease troubles and provide comfort to a degree, but will that money always do us good? Will it preserve our dignity as humans, and save us from constantly being at the mercy of others? Will it save an elite spot for us every step along the way? It will do no such thing. At the end, we stand and crumble all the same. This is certain.

How fortunate would I have been to heed the advice given to me? 1,0,9,4 were drawn the following night in the Win4 combination game. Yet I had no regrets because I know money loses its value when you really think about the heinous things people will do for it. I know it can transform compassion and love into greed, just like I know Ms. Torres speaks volumes with her silence. A woman cheated by her own son. Deceived and falsely persuaded to sign all assets and property over to him while ill, in hopes that he would nurse her back to health and look after her belongings. Everything was sold, and poor Eulalia was tossed into a home, with no ties to a family, and not even a greeting card on Christmas. Neither is little Miss Pippy an exception to the wrath of greed. She’s an angry little woman, but what fuels her rage? Josephine inherited much of her parent’s wealth, and now her husband wants a share. State laws being complicated, and inheritance not being considered marital property, he needs to prove he is a devoted and loyal husband to help his case. So devoted he is, as to not even miss a day to come by, and sometimes brings along a woman friend whom he calls his niece. And so loyal of a man, that he pecks Josie’s check, but kisses the neck and lips of this niece. Her mindless condition is to his advantage, and he’s milking it for all it is worth. All she does is smile and cry, and smile again and tells him to go kill himself, “you lousy son of a bitch.”