Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Worse came to worse

I saw my neighbor's daughter and son-in-law stop by his house today and I went over to see how he was doing at the hospital. The daughter said they have decided that he will go from the hospital (where he went after another fall) to a nearby nursing home, and stay there. They don't want him to come home again because he's so physically fragile.

After they left, I looked over at his house, with his car parked out front, and the confused cat sitting on the front steps, and I felt very strange. It gave me an inkling of what it must have been like in Nazi Germany, or Poland, when your Jewish neighbors were taken away to a concentration camp. Of course Steve will not be humiliated, or tortured, or killed. But he was taken away against his will, and he won't won't be coming back.

I suspect Steve had been hoping that he'd die of a heart attack out in his backyard, among his raspberry bushes, or in his easy chair, watching a Mariners game on TV, or in bed, with Smokey curled up beside him. He is a fiercely independent person, and I can't imagine him taking well to living in a nursing home.

Episodes like this remind me to start studying up on poisonous plants for my own old age.

2 comments:

  1. We're both off. It's "worse comes to worst," indicating a progression from worse to worst. http://www.bartleby.com/68/2/3102.html

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