WRITE WHAT YOU SEE OR HEAR

Writers are told to write what they know.  Sometimes that just means write what you see or hear.  This story was based on an exchange I overheard at the pub one night.

PLAYING TRIVIA

            Meredith sat next to her husband at the local pub.  Their hands were on keyboards while they played a game of trivia that was up on the television screen.  As they played, another couple entered and came to the next table.  The man was over six feet tall and looked solid.  The woman only stood about five feet tall.  She was slight and nervous.  Meredith watched as he held her chair.  They sat facing each other.

            The server pounced on them immediately, brandishing menus and coasters, asking what they wanted to drink.  The woman ordered a bottle of beer, and he ordered diet pop.  Waiting for their drinks, they pored over their menus.

            “You can order anything you’d like,” he told her with a smile.

            As they dined, they chatted, and Meredith listened.  He was a trucker.  She worked in an office.  He had never been married.  She had been divorced for years and had raised her children alone.  She had a dog.  He was allergic to dogs.

            “The dog is a guard dog.  I have him to keep my ex away from me and my house.  I won’t be abused again, by anybody,” she said, as she lifted her beer with one hand to take a drink.

            “When I’m there, you won’t need the dog.  I’ll make sure your ex never comes near you,” he said, as he placed his hand over hers on the tabletop.  She pulled her hand away.

            After dinner, he ordered coffee and she ordered another beer.  They kept chatting, seeking absolute truth on a first date, Meredith thought.  The woman started to lead the conversation, talking about her house instead of herself.

            “I’m good at repairs,” the man said.  “I can fix most things around the house.”  Again he covered her hand with his and again she pulled away.

            He ordered another coffee and she another beer.

            “You know,” she said, “one dinner isn’t going to get you into my bed.  You’re not taking me for a ride tonight.”

            “Of course not,” he said unperturbed.  “We can have several dinners first,” he reassured her, as he placed his hand over hers again.

            This time she looked at him searchingly before she slowly pulled her hand away again.  He paid their bill and Meredith watched them leave.

            “Is he getting any tonight?” Meredith asked her husband.

            “You tell me,” he said.  “I don’t know how women think.”

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­__________________________________

By Lisa A. Hatton

           

THE SOUL LIVES FOREVER

I firmly believe the Soul lives forever.  Isn’t that what Easter is all about anyhow?

ETERNAL

            His voice always haunted me, with intonations of Great Britain, and honour and chivalry.  His deep, mellow tone called me home every time I heard it.

            I was not yet twenty when he first spoke to me in my car.  It was late at night as I drove home from some outing.  His voice talked to me from my radio on the only station I received.  For several years and with the wisdom of maturity, he informed me of politics and current events and community concerns and social mores, always with some ironic twist at the end.  He was a date I counted on.

            The years passed.  I married and moved away and then returned.  His radio station died.  But he found rebirth elsewhere on the dial.  My marriage ended and I sought the solace of the voice I knew.

            Eventually I sent him poetry of mine.  He read it on the air.  I wrote again, and once more he read my poem, his noble voice pronouncing my written words.  I sensed a union consummated before we even met.

            He sought me out by mail and invited me for a long, romantic lunch.  His words bade me come to hear his voice in person, and so I did.

            We met, we talked, we listened, our minds reaching out to entwine each other’s heart.  On parting, he kissed the inside of my wrist and asked when we might meet again.  We set a date and time for our first tryst.

            It was the beginning of a ten year love affair.  Each of us only wanted the loving, the coming together in pure joy, and then parting to live our separate lives.  I gave him back his youth.  He gave me back my faith in love.

            Then after ten years of only the loving, I needed more.  I gave my heart and daily life to another.  Certain the love affair was ended, I moved on.  But I wasn’t prepared for the shock of his voice grasping for the memories stored in my heart each time I inadvertently heard him on the radio.

            He haunted me that way for years.  Until one night in a dream he berated me for leaving him.  The next day, the haunting ceased when I read his obituary in the newspaper.  I no longer hear his voice on the radio.  Now he simply speaks his name inside my mind and the secret caress of his unseen presence tells me the love we shared is eternal.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­________________________________

By Lisa A. Hatton

BECAUSE IT'S TAX TIME

April is a time for filing income taxes, so I thought the following personal article might be appropriate.  Receipts can be revealing.  What do yours say about you?  Enjoy!

DISCLOSURE

                        As a bookkeeper for more than forty years, I learned to read people by the receipts they kept for business.  My penchant for deciphering numbers in fine print told me far more than just the financial cost of an item or service.

            I could tell there were two guests in a hotel room when a businessman was out of town, on business, without his wife.  I knew a businesswoman bought ten bottles of vodka for one dinner for four that she hosted back in December.  I knew when he sent his wife flowers, or when she took her husband golfing.  I knew where they banked and how much they earned.  I knew what their medical premiums cost and where they had RRSPs.  I could tell what vehicles they drove, whether they were purchased or leased, and when their insurance expired.  I knew if he had disability insurance or if she had life insurance.  I knew what school their children attended and the colour of the uniform for the basketball team they sponsored.  And I learned where the whole family vacationed each year.

            So what did my receipts say about me?  The top drawer of my filing cabinet was overflowing, so I pulled out one file folder that was bulging, entitled “Personal Receipts”.  It had been collecting items for many years.  I spent an hour sorting my memories, keeping some and discarding others.

            I’d been searching for a diagram I knew I saved that showed the assembly of an oscillating fan.  I wanted to take the fan apart and clean it.  “Destructions” come in handy.  The fan was probably twenty years old but I still had the diagram in my personal receipt file.

            What other details of my life were evident on paper?  I found picture I.D. of myself that had been issued by the provincial government before drivers’ licences included pictures.  The I.D. had been required to prove I wasn’t a minor when I purchased alcohol.  This laminated piece of identification was from 1970.

            There was a hospital registration card for my daughter from Vancouver Children’s Hospital for when she had open heart surgery in 1984 at the age of five.  When she turned sixteen, I gave her a birthstone ring.  I saw the receipt from the local jeweller.  And later there were receipts from her two driving tests; the one she failed and the one she passed.  From Champagne & Lace I had the receipt for her grad dress.  All of these were proof she lived and grew up.

            For my son, I found outdated vehicle registrations and vehicle insurance papers.   When he graduated as a second lieutenant from the Royal Military College in Kingston, I bought him a silver pocket watch and a silver flask, both engraved with his name and both for him to use with his dress uniform.  I had the receipts.

            I kept airline tickets to my son’s graduation and my daughter’s wedding.  There were also tickets to Winnipeg one February so I could visit my son and daughter-in-law at C.F.B. Shilo.  I remember the temperature was minus forty degrees Celsius the whole five days of my visit!

            I had receipts for my ancient chesterfield suite and VCR, both of which were still in use.  There were receipts for cameras that have since died and for all the repairs to a washing machine we later replaced.  I had detailed instructions for care of a box spring and mattress I bought for my daughter.

            In the file were all the vet bills for our since departed cat.  And I had the receipt for the large print bible I gave my mother-in-law for her birthday one year.

            Since the late 1980s, I had saved receipts every time I renewed my disabled parking permit.  My fold-up cane cost me $29.99, and my designer cane cost me $49.99.  My wheeled walker with brakes and basket cost $200.00, used.  No warranty.

            In 1996, my son bought one new tire for my car, for $129.95 at Canadian Tire.  I subscribed to Reader’s Digest for five years in a row, and to Storyteller Magazine for two years.

 
            The television in the living room came from Visions, a wedding present from my mother.  My driving glasses were two for the price of one.  My largest expenditures on clothing were always at the fabric store, some assembly required.  The Corelle dishes in the kitchen came from Walmart.  Wedding presents for the kids, pots and pans with twenty-five year warranties for both my son and daughter, came from Sears and so did my Kenmore stove.  There was also the receipt for the marriage licence when Bryon and I got married.

            Ah, yes.  There is revelation by receipt.  Can you read me now?

_________________________

By Lisa A. Hatton

WHO DO YOU TRUST?

I wrote the following story to illustrate some of the problems faced by seniors who age and lose their independence.  It's a difficult transition for everyone involved, and this story is only a small fraction of the many that could, or should, be told.  

TREACHERY?

             Connie lay on her back, counting the ceiling tiles in her room at the Shady Acres Hospice.  After a broken hip and a diagnosis of multiple cancers, she’d been moved there from the hospital.  Her daughter, Francine, though, was the only one using the word “terminal” about her condition, insisting that at eighty-four it was time her mother give her  Power of Attorney to handle her affairs.  Regretting that she’d signed the papers, Connie’s fingers plucked at the bedspread in agitation.

            “Mrs. Matheson, would you like to go down the hall with the walker again?  We can take you to the TV lounge and you can visit with Mabel for a bit.  Would you like that?” the nurse asked.

            “Yes.  Yes, I would,” she answered, always eager to move around and see other people.  She had been an active senior, busy with bowling and swimming and walking and visiting other shut-ins not so lucky.  Until that day she’d slipped on her own icy steps and broken her hip.

            “Here’s a robe I found that you can use,” the nurse said as she helped Connie cover up the ugly hospital gown.  Connie was mortified at wearing a hand-me-down robe, as if she was too poor to buy her own.  She had always been a natty dresser.

            “I’ve asked my daughter to bring me my clothes, but she says I don’t need them,” Connie suddenly blurted, in spite of never wanting to air dirty family laundry.  “I’m sure I could dress myself now.”

            “Yes, you most certainly could.  You’re healing nicely and moving better every day.”

            Connie walked slowly but surely down the hall with the walker, chatting with the nurse about the weather.  Once in the cheerful lounge decorated in bright spring colours, she sat at the games table where Mabel was sitting in her wheelchair, playing solitaire.

            “Morning, Connie.  I see they found a robe for you.  I’ve a good mind to tell your daughter what for!  She’s so unkind to you,” Mabel said, as she turned over a queen of spades.

            “Don’t do that, Mabel!  Don’t cause any trouble, please.  Francine’s under her husband’s thumb, and I know he’s after all my money.  If she defies him, he’ll make her life miserable, and I don’t want that.”

            “But Connie, she’s got access to all your money and the keys to your house and she’s refusing to bring you any clothes or personal belongings that you want.  You’re not dead yet, old girl, not doomed like me.  You know the doctor said you could live for many months or even a few years.  You could have a life again, Connie!  Don’t give up!” Mabel said just before she started coughing uncontrollably.

            Connie watched helplessly as the nurse hurried in and fitted Mabel with the mask from the portable oxygen tank on her wheelchair, and then pushed her out of the room.

            All her life, Connie had been quietly but determinedly independent.  She had nursed her husband for two years after his stroke, until he died of heart failure at fifty-nine.  She had worked as an office manager till she was seventy, and then worked for free as a volunteer in the community ever since.  She wasn’t one to ask for help.  It belittled her to ask her daughter repeatedly to bring her clothes and shoes and toiletries, items that somehow never arrived.  She feared she was imposing too much on Francine who was already handling her banking and paying her bills and taking care of her house for her.  So Connie had quit asking, and resigned herself to dying in this place, counting ceiling tiles.  But perhaps Mabel was right.  Maybe she did still have some life left, she thought as she gathered and shuffled the playing cards.

            When she returned to her room, she sat in the upright chair beside the night table and nervously reached for the phone.  Luckily it was Sunday afternoon and she remembered her son’s phone number.  Trembling, she made a collect call to him, seven hundred miles away.

            “Peter?  Oh, Peter.  Thank goodness I can talk to you,” Connie started, and then poured her heart out to her son.  She told him Francine had Power of Attorney and controlled her money, that she wouldn’t bring her any clothes, that she wasn’t about to die, that she hadn’t had a stroke like Francine had told him, that she didn’t have dementia, that Francine was selling all her belongings, and she was afraid she would sell the house and take all that money, too, if they didn’t do something.

            When Connie hung up, she was greatly relieved that Peter would catch the first plane home in the morning.  Determined to make the most of whatever time she had left, she started doing the exercises the physiotherapist had taught her to improve her mobility.  If she could start getting around without the presence of a nurse, then at least she could go visit the other patients who couldn’t leave their rooms.  She needed to have purpose again.

            Late the next afternoon, Connie was seated next to her son at a table in a private meeting room.  Francine and her husband sat across from them, and the doctor and a social worker sat at either end of the table.

            “Mrs. Matheson does not need to stay here in the hospice,” Doctor Rashid said.  “She’s not nearing imminent death.  Her heart is strong, she’s regaining mobility and her cancers are not causing her any great discomfort and may not do so for quite some time.  She may not be able to return to living on her own, but some form of long term care would be better suited to her remaining life than staying here with bated breath anticipating sudden demise.  Social services can help you find suitable placement Mrs. Matheson, where I’m sure you would be comfortable and even able to enjoy some social life again.

            “But what about the stroke she had, and her dementia?  The hospital said she was going to die, just like Dad did.  She’s not capable of making decisions on her own!”  Francine cried.

            “Well, your mother has never had a stroke, and shows no signs of dementia, so she is perfectly capable of deciding things for herself, and I will attest to that if required,” Dr. Rashid said.  “You can chat now with Ms. Yang here about possible living arrangements,” he said as he rose and left.

            Connie watched her daughter cross her arms in a huff, as she avoided looking at her mother or her brother.  Under the table, she felt Peter lay his hand over her own two hands clutched in her lap and he squeezed slightly.  He then raised the matter of why Francine had sold everything in the house and wanted to know where their Mother’s clothes were and why hadn’t she brought her any of the things she needed?

            “You have no right to come in here out of the blue and demand anything, Peter!  You haven’t been around to look after tick all for years, so don’t you come in pretending to be some bloody knight in shining armor when you haven’t lifted a finger to help all this time.  I’m the one who’s had to do everything.  So yes, I sold everything in the house and cleaned it up and painted the walls and got rid of all the old crap, and listed the house for sale.  I’ve done it all, no thanks to you!” Francine railed at her brother.

            “So what have you done with the money?  If you got rid of all Mom’s clothes and furniture and belongings, then there should be enough money to buy new clothes for her now.  And what about her future care?  As the oldest child, I want an itemized accounting of all income and expenses since Mom gave you Power of Attorney!” Peter yelled back.  “And if you don’t comply, you’ll hear from my lawyer!”

            Connie saw Francine turn pale and look nervously at her husband, Benjamin, who in turn was glaring at Peter.  She couldn’t take any more of this.  Her whole family was falling apart, as if all the love she’d given them didn’t count for a thing.  They were fighting over her money and she wasn’t even dead yet.  Rattled and distraught, Connie burst into tears.  “Don’t fight.  Please don’t fight any more.  I’ll stay here.  I don’t need anything.  Please don’t fight.”

            Ms. Yang cleared the others out of the room, saying she needed to speak with Mrs. Matheson alone and apprise her of her options.

            “You know, Mrs. Matheson, that you can revoke a Power of Attorney?  That it doesn’t have to be everlasting?”

            “I can?” Connie asked as she wiped her nose on a tissue Ms. Yang supplied.

            “Yes, you can.  And you can name a new one if you want, if you can’t get out and about to handle your business affairs.  Nothing is locked in stone.  Do you have any other children?”

            “No, just Peter and Francine.  But I have a lovely granddaughter.  Peter’s child.  She lives not far from here and comes to see me as often as she can.  She’s married and has a child of her own.  But she always says just to call her if I need anything, but I would never trouble a grandchild.  She’s such a dear, though.”

            “Mrs. Matheson, do you think she might be willing to help with your affairs?”

            “Well, I don’t know about that.  Wouldn’t that put her in the middle between her father and her aunt?”

            “You have a will, don’t you?”

            “Yes, it leaves everything to Peter and Francine.”

            “Well, all your granddaughter has to worry about then is handling your current money and affairs, and keeping an account of it, and then everything would go to your two children when you pass away.  Your pension would cover expenses in a subsidized care home.  But if you want to live in a facility that offers more, you could use the funds from the sale of your home to cover that additional expense.  Do you think you could trust your granddaughter to help you and to make sure you have whatever you need in the meantime?”

            “Oh, maybe.  She’s a sensible girl, honest and hardworking and very caring.  Yes, that might just work.  Can we call her and ask?  I think I need your help to explain this to her.  I’m not very good at asking youngsters to help an old burden like me.”

            “No problem.  In fact, I can call her for you, if you’d like,” Ms. Yang said, as she placed her cold hand over Connie’s.

            Two days later, Connie was slowly getting dressed in a new outfit Sarah had brought for her to wear.  She’d bought tops and slacks and underwear and shoes and socks out of her own money, she’d been so concerned when she’d learned of her Gran’s situation.  Connie was vastly relieved she could rely on at least one family member and that someone would be there for her during whatever time she had left.

            At Ms. Yang’s suggestion, she had asked that Peter and Francine also be present as she signed the papers to revoke Francine’s Power of Attorney and then give that power to Sarah.  She took a deep breath later, summoning her courage, as she faced her two children in the meeting room.

            “Francine, Peter, you know my will still stands.  That everything left when I die is split between the two of you.  In the meantime, I’ve asked Sarah to handle my business affairs and you are to leave her alone to do that.  She’s already brought me clothes and things, and I need someone I can count on.  No more fighting, you two.  I’m sorry I’ve been such a burden to you, Francine.  And Peter, I’m sorry to have brought you into this when you live so far away,” Connie told them.  “And Sarah, I’m so grateful to you for being willing to look after your old Gran.  Thank you for taking this on.”

            “Oh Gran, you know I’m only too happy to look after things for you.  We’ll keep these old reprobates in line now, won’t we?” Sarah joked with an impish grin, lightening everyone’s mood.

            After signing all the papers in front of the Notary Public Sarah had hired to attend their meeting, Connie made her family join her in the lounge for a cup of tea, almost like old times.  Francine left first, when her husband came to pick her up.  He’d called her on her cell phone to say he expected her home to cook dinner.  Then Peter made ready to leave.

            “Have to catch my plane home, Mom.  I’ll call you every Sunday from now on, to see how you’re doing.  Sarah will let me know when you move to a new facility and maybe I’ll come up for a visit then,” he said as he bent down to kiss her goodbye.

            Sarah walked back to Connie’s room with her, matching her young stride to her grandmother’s slow pace with the walker.

            “That wasn’t too bad, Gran, except for when you told Aunt Francine to give me the bank statements and the cheque book.  There were daggers shooting from her eyes.”

            “Don’t you worry about it, Sarah.  Just show the bank the Power of Attorney, and then write yourself a cheque to cover the cost of those clothes you bought me.  I don’t want you going without because you were kind enough to help me.”

            “I know, Gran, I know.  Here’s your room now.  I do have to go and pick up little Jason from daycare.  You take care, and I’ll be by on Friday,” she said, kissing Connie on the cheek and then turning and walking away down the hall.

            Instead of going into her room, Connie stood and watched her granddaughter.  As Sarah neared the nurse’s desk, Connie saw her stop and chat with Ms. Yang and give her an envelope.  Ms. Yang peeked inside it, gave Sarah a thumb’s up, and then quickly stashed the envelope in the deep pocket of her blazer.

            Now what was that all about, Connie wondered?

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_______________________________

By Lisa A. Hatton