Thoughts From an Old Chair

Two weeks is what the doctor told me today. In a way, it’s comforting. I’ve been waiting... waiting for so long for a date. Half my life, it seems. No, it’d take a lot to be half my life. My nurse told me today that she would arrange everything for me for when I die. She comes to see me everyday, even today even though it’s her day off. She told me she wanted to be with me when I found out. It’s nice to know that someone cares about a haggard old lady. 

I told him today. It was the first time I’d heard his voice. It was the answering machine, but that’s the most I can ask for. Even that is better than nothing. He wouldn’t see me if I told him I was on my deathbed. A part of me wonders if he ever thinks about me. He probably has better things to do than wonder how his old, sick mother is. What was it he said? ‘Driven mad by time’, he told me. A ‘raging lunatic’ he said. Maybe I was, but not for much longer (cough out a laugh hoarsely). I haven’t laughed in a while. Not since Christmas in ’99, I think. Or was it Christmas ’09? Well, not since... since I heard. It took me so long to accept it. I wasn’t sure I ever would. He didn’t. Said I had gone off my rocker. I said he was crazy, because I couldn’t get off my rocker without assistance from a specialist, but he said that joking made it worse. I haven’t seen him since. He won’t let me near my grandkids either. Two little girls. They’ll never really know me I guess. Just how he wanted it. 

How many weeks was it? Two weeks is all I have now. Two weeks, an estranged son, three shabby cats, and this old chair that I can’t seem to get out of. There’s not time, it seems, to fix all that. Well, it won’t matter. Not to me, I guess. I won’t have to worry about standing up from this chair for another minute. Will he come to my funeral, I wonder? There probably won’t even be one. All my friends are dead, who’s left to come to mine? I wonder what he’ll do with this old chair. It’s been here for so long. Ah well, it won’t matter in... what did the doctor tell me? Three weeks? One? It won’t matter when I’m gone, I mean. 

I’ve spent so much time on this planet, you’d think I deserved an award. I’m sure no one from my year in high school is still alive. Good thing they stopped having reunions a while ago, I would be lonely there, dancing by myself. No one else graduated in my year that stayed in Birmingham. In... what year was I? Oh well, no one else stayed around these parts. My old leg’s fallen asleep, but the nurse won’t be here to stretch it till later. She comes at the same time everyday. What time will she come? Soon, I hope. I should probably try to stand up to get rid of those pins and needles. That’s what my mama called them. I wonder when she’ll come see me again. 

My damn old leg. Don’t I have a doctors appointment soon? Yesterday, that’s when. I guess the doctor will call me soon. I should tell my son. I miss him, and the grandkids. I know I saw them yesterday, but days seem so long when you’re sick and old like me. When’s that doctor gonna call?