My mail box was
empty the first two weeks I was here. There were, I thought, two possible
explanations: I am a loser, and no one sent me anything; or I am an idiot and
made a mistake filling out the change-of-address form before I left Ashtabula.
I gave the matter some thought and concluded the problem was idiocy. Now there
is a strong possibility that I am a loser, but I am a loser with a few
outstanding bills, and creditors do not discriminate; they send their bills to anyone,
even losers.
After more intense thought, I realized the
dearth of mail might not be a reflection on my personality or my intelligence.
The day I moved in, Nona – whom I had spoken to frequently in the weeks leading
up to my move – gave me a quick tour. “And these are the mailboxes,” she said.
“Yours is up here.” Then she looked at me in the wheelchair and decided it
would be easier to bring the mailbox down to me than it would be for me to get
up to the mailbox. An hour or so later, she dropped by the room and said my
mailbox had been relocated. Every day thereafter, I went to the box and checked
on the accumulating dust.
On my third Monday at Covenant Woods,
I went to the front desk and told Shirley what I thought might have happened –that the mail was being put
somewhere other than in my relocated box – never letting on that the
real reason might be my idiocy. Shirley went to the
mailroom, and a few minutes later told me that there was no mail for me in the
box that until two weeks earlier had been B116. I thanked her for her taking
the time to look, and as I wondered how to tell the Postal Service that I’m an
idiot, Shirley said, “When the mailman comes, I’ll ask him about it.” In the
afternoon, none too confident, I stopped by the mailbox and found mail in it.
There was a check from the dentist – I had left town with a credit balance in
his account – and a bill from the Cleveland Clinic. Alas, the bill was
considerably larger than the check, but isn’t that always the way it is.
Later in the week, I found some birthday
cards and a manila envelope from Suzanne, my writing mentor, filled with the most delightful lies in
the form of poems the people in the writing class composed on the occasion of
my going south. This week the Facebook messages, the cards, the poems and
Suzanne’s note put a little spring in my step. Well, the wheelchair was sprightlier,
anyway.
Thursday I went over to the strip mall to
get a few things, and as I was cruising up the sidewalk my phone rang. It was
Bethany. She is always so bubbly and never fails to lift my spirits. Hayden, my grandson, is
walking and talking, and his mouth is filling up with teeth. Beth and Ken are
getting ready to do some preliminary work on their garden. They moved over the
winter and are up on the mountain now, high enough that the possibility of
frost will be there until early June. So they won’t be able to do much planting
for a while, but they’re anxious to get started.
Russ and Karen brought dinner to me on Sunday. Karen made chicken and corn
on the cob. And there was a store bought lemony custard pie with a Nilla Wafer
crust. We had half of it for desert, and they left the other half here. They
know how to please the old man.
My birthday wasn’t the only age-related
reminder of the week. Karen and Russ have now been together for thirteen years. To mark the occasion, Karen said Russ got her a broiler pan and a baking
pan. I thought this was the start of a man-with-no-clue joke. But Karen went on
to say, “You know you’re getting old when you get a broiler pan for your
anniversary and you’re excited. Actually, that’s what I told Russ I wanted.”
Ah, visions of domestic bliss are wonderful, but if Russ and Karen are getting
old, I’m getting older.
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