All will be well.
Except what won’t be, part 2.
“Albert agrees,” Roz said. “If you are going to go mad, please don’t go quietly mad.
“The way you usually do,” she added. “Make some noise.”
“What sort of noise?” I said. “Like a duck, like a goose, like a gull, like a siren?”
“Like a dove,” Roz said.
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| ‘All will be well’ And if it doesn’t be, there are boxes they can put you in. |
Her new cat, Potato, can purr like a dove, or like several doves. I can’t make a dove sound, nothing near, though if I went crazy quietly enough, I might be able to when I got there.
Roz said this, “Albert agrees. Please don’t go quietly mad” this morning, before she left for work. Then, she kissed me, and she left.
I went back upstairs and knocked on Uncle Albert’s door. He said, “What?” and I said, so it would be like every morning, “Are you ready for breakfast?” He said, “Almost,” also like every morning. And I went in to help him with his slippers. Otherwise, he was dressed, but the every-morning litany is not the every-morning litany if he isn’t having trouble with his slippers and I don’t help him.
Then we came down the stairs, and we went back — from the front of the house to the back of the house, from the front door to the back door — we went back to the kitchen. He sat down at the table. I said, “What?” And he said, “Oatmeal.” And it continued, the litany.
And I started the kettle and poured him a mug of coffee, added half-and-half and a spoonful of fake sugar, and put it in front of him. When the kettle sang, I made the oatmeal. It’s instant. The oats in a bowl, the boiling water on top to the right amount, stir. Add brown sugar and milk.
“Am I about to go mad?” I asked.
“Indications are,” Uncle Albert said.
For the last several months — I’m not sure how many — Uncle Albert has eaten oatmeal for breakfast and a peanut butter and bologna sandwich for lunch. He drinks coffee at breakfast. He drinks grape Kool-Aid at lunch. He takes his fiber pills with one glass of Kool-Aid. Then, he has a second glass to wash down his sandwich. Every other week or so, he thinks out loud about changing from grape Kool-Aid to “red,” but the next day, or sometimes in the next breath, he decides not.
On the other hand, he doesn’t care what brand of bologna we buy or what brand of peanut butter, only not crunchy.
Uncle Albert has been 96 for as long as I can remember. Or in my mind he has. In truth, I have no idea how old he is. Some days, ninety-six seems about right; other days, he seems much younger. He can still get up and down the stairs, without help if he has to. He reads in the morning. He goes out most afternoons. Nils Sundstrøm or Carl the truck driver from the rooming house he used to live in or one of his lectio divina friends comes by. And off they go I don’t know where except sometimes I tag along when it’s Nils — then they go to Corner Coffee and talk about politics and religion. I listen.
I asked him once what he and Carl talked about. “Roads,” Uncle Albert said.
After breakfast this morning, I got him settled in his chair. He won’t have a recliner, but he has a rocker and doorstops for under the rockers and a footstool and a number of different sized pillows I can adjust according to his instructions. I get him settled in his chair with his little pile of books beside him, LaRochefoucauld and Montaigne and Weymouth’s New Testament. And he chooses one — this morning, the New Testament, which he opened to the middle of John’s gospel, blew a raspberry, and turned forward to Acts.
I went back to the kitchen to rinse the breakfast dishes and put them in the dishwasher.
I sat down at the kitchen table, and I thought about going mad. Was I? Again? If so, it was going to be quiet. I couldn’t make a noise about it. I didn’t have the right one.
02.20.23
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About Roz here. About Nils here. Carl is here. And I take Uncle Albert to lectio here.
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