—October 6, 1998—

        The nursing home tries to create a homey atmosphere. Potted trees and hanging plants decorate the lobby and halls. Framed prints of Impressionist landscapes and domestic scenes hang among the also-framed certificates of licensure, registration, and inspection. I hardly notice these familiar, comforting touches as I head for the elevator and for my weekly visit to Rose.

        On the second floor the wards are named for flowers to help confused residents locate their rooms in the otherwise uniform corridors. I walk toward the large picture of a yellow tulip. Too bad she couldn’t have had a room in the Rose corridor. Yet when she entered the home seven years earlier, Rose was able to remember her room number, Tulip 209, and could find her way there after chatting with the ladies in the day room. She had long since abandoned walking, remembering, and, finally, talking.

        I approach her room, with its mildly antiseptic smell and hard shiny floor. I am sure to find her in her bed, as she is too frail to hoist into a wheelchair, even the large reclining kind used for those too weak to sit upright. She lies there, eyes closed, body shrunken to loose skin over sharp bones, with an untied hospital gown draped across her chest. Rose, who was once so lively, an enthusiastic dancer, a sculptor, a player of golf; Rose, who kept a punching bag in the cellar of our Brooklyn house next to the washtubs. who always fretted about being fat and was always on one diet or another; Rose, who searched for dresses that would camouflage her bosom and make her “look thin,” is now reduced to a shadow. I try to rouse her. “Rose.” I say, “it’s Sheila. Wake up!” Her eyes open, uncomprehending. “Rose,” I say, “I brought you some chocolate.” The eyes close again. “Rose, wouldn’t you like some chocolate?” I say, louder.

        Rose loves chocolate. She often told me how she dreamt of cigar-boxes full of chocolate bars during a childhood of poverty and want. She had always accepted chocolate from me, even when she no longer knew me and no longer spoke. Rose would let me put a brown square into her fingers and would bring it to her toothless mouth to suck, and would sometimes smile and sometimes ask for more with her eyes and sometimes fall asleep. Today there is no response.

        Rose and I had always joked that when she stopped eating chocolate she would surely be dead. Rose was not afraid to die and did not pity herself. What she feared was drifting away, and that is just what happened. Once she said to me, “Do you remember how they used to shoot horses when they fell and broke their legs and were no use any more? Can that be done for people?” Still, in the end she accepted her fate and now spends most of her time in a kind of sleep. Who knows what dreams keep her company?

        I have my little sketch book with me as usual, but somehow I cannot bring myself to draw her today. The book holds many likenesses of Rose, begun when she ceased talking, so that I could visit her and keep busy. My return to drawing is one of the many gifts that she gave me, without knowing. Rose has never seen the pictures. Better so, since she told me she did not feel old and hated to look into the mirror. Later she spoke to me as if I were her long-dead sister and asked what had become of her green coat. Finally she stopped talking. I sit with Rose for a while and then rise to go. It is Janet’s birthday and I want to be sure to call her. I wish my daughter a happy birthday and tell her about the visit.

        That night I am called from the nursing home. An aide had gone into her room to give her a pill and found my mother dead.—Sheila B. Blume, February 2001.