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Quote of the day: "We're all going to die." - Mrs. Littlefield, age 93
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October 13, 1998 |
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we're all going to die | |||||
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Copyright © 1998, Janet I. Egan |
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The new espresso machine works. This is good because I'm spacy from driving up from Providence this morning. Philosophy Larry is correcting papers. I join him and get an earful about union troubles at unnamed state college. He goes back to correcting papers and I start making a chart of what birds I've observed at the cove in which months to send to the woman from ASRI to whom I promised it at the hearing on Thursday. Tom arrives and joins us, but Larry has to leave. I have a disjointed talk with Tom about getting someone to videotape the play (coming up on Friday). I have to leave to meet Martha at Brigham Manor to do our cat therapy thing. Since Martha is picking up the 3 kittens, Webster, Jack, and Bonnie, from their foster home, and we're borrowing 2 cats, Misty and Sasha, from Kozy Kitty complete with a volunteer named George, I don't have to go to the shelter and lug Chantal, the world's heaviest cat, and her sister Alexis in my car. All I have to do is get myself to Brigham Manor at 2:00 to meet Martha and George. George is a groomer and he brought some brushes so maybe the elders could brush the long haired cats. Some of the elders are actually capable of holding the brushes and enjoy the opportunity. One woman who keeps running over another woman's foot with her wheelchair becomes convinced Webster is her cat. "At least he knows who I am even though the rest of you don't." Later she says the same things about Jack. She keeps yelling: "Take me to the first floor" and "I want you to know I'm very upset." Other residents keep telling her she's already on the first floor. This just makes her angrier. She has now petted every one of the five cats we brought, multiple times. I've moved her wheelchair off the other woman's foot four times. I'm busy getting a stressed out kitten off Mrs. Littlefield's lap when the woman shouts: "I'm very upset. I'm ill and I'm going to die." Silence for about 3 seconds, then Mrs. Littlefield responds: "We're all going to die." Other residents chime in "yeah, all of us." I respond with: "I'm going to die too, so is Martha, so are the cats, so are we all." Everybody murmurs something in assent. After all, we are all going to die. No one has ever lived forever. A woman who has been clutching a stuffed cat the whole time starts yelling "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck". The man sitting near her keeps asking us "that one's not real is it?" I bring over a real cat and put her hand on its soft fur. Jack is gray and really really soft. Purrfect for this kind of work. The woman starts yelling "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" again. A chorus of: "Take me to the first floor" , "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" , and "that one's not real is it?" makes the whole thing sort of surreal. One of the kittens hisses at Mrs. Littlefield, another of the kittens has gone back into the carrier and curled up in a ball, the adult cats are stretched out on the floor behind the residents, gazing out the window. It's clearly past time to stop. We usually only do 45 minutes of cat visits before both the cats and the residents get tired, but today we were there for over an hour and even after we packed up the cats the activities director asked us to give a talk about the history of our shelter and Purrfect Companions and how the cats get their names ...I was relieved that this week I didn't have to lug Chantal, the world's heaviest cat, back to the shelter. Martha took the three kittens back to their foster home down the street and George took Misty and Sasha back to Kozy Kitty. I drove home thinking about how none of us know the day nor the hour of our death. | |||||
