I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Author: Sheila Morris

  • My Rich People’s Eye


    Here’s another essay just finished and hot off the presses…comments?

    MY RICH PEOPLE’S EYE

     

                The surest method I’ve found for beginning a new nonfiction work is to start writing fiction again.   When I speak about writing, albeit infrequently these days,  on panels or in workshops or in my friend’s writing classes at the University of South Carolina, someone always asks me why don’t you write fiction, with the less than subtle implication that fiction must surely be every writer’s dream and the most compelling of all literary art forms.   You know who you are, short story writers and novelists-to-be and fiction reading enthusiasts everywhere.   I applaud you.   I salute you for your loyalty to the genre.   Unfortunately, I find it impossible to join your ranks – yet.   I’ve tried.   God knows I’ve tried.   This week I dusted off my trusty Cowgirls at the Roundup short story a/k/a historical romance a/k/a blistering lesbian passion novella a/k/a my version of Beethoven’s Unfinished Symphony.   When I woke this morning, eager to resume my writing about lesbian cowgirls in Texas in the early 1900s, I lay in bed a few minutes too long.

                I have a game I sometimes play by myself in bed.  Aha – see?  I could maybe turn this into a sexual story about women’s libido in their sixties and all the women who read this will be immediately captivated by the topic and wait with panting breath because they want to know if there is sex after sixty.    And possibly a few of the men, too, although the men are fairly confident there is.   Good news, or bad news, depending on your sexual appetite, I can assure you the sexual self lives on.   However, that game isn’t what I’m playing by myself in bed today.  No, the game I’m talking about is the difference in how we view our world.   I call the game My Rich People’s Eye.

                My game started simply and it’s been such fun I play it over and over again.  But first, the back story that led to the creation of the game.   I feel like Milton Bradley must have felt when he developed The Checkered Game of Life and other equally entertaining board games.   Exhilarated with the creative process.   Practically giddy.    You see, earlier this year I had scheduled cataract surgeries in both my eyes.   Yes, yes, I know.   This is what old people talk about all the time.   Their health… blah, blah, blah.  I can remember when I used to say why do old people always talk about their health?   This was when I was under fifty.   Now that I’m sixty-five, I totally get it.   But, I digress.

                When I made my initial visit to the ophthalmologist who was to perform the typically routine surgeries, he mentioned I had a choice for my new lens.   The Medicare lens which I qualified for would cost me approximately $200 per eye and would correct my nearsightedness roughly 80 – 90% within a few weeks following the surgery and he could almost guarantee I wouldn’t need to wear eyeglasses except for reading and close work like computer work, which by the way in case you’re wondering, was my only form of work.   So far, so good.  There was, however, a super deluxe eye treatment available which Medicare didn’t cover and the cost of that eye lens was approximately $2,000 per eye but  it offered all sorts of advantages with top-notch reading vision as well as distance correction.  In other words, it was The Bomb.   I quickly told my doctor I would take the Medicare eye since my current budget wouldn’t allow the additional expense.   No problem, he said, and made the notation in my chart.   My first surgery was scheduled for June 23rd on my right eye and July 5th. on my left one.

                At some point not long after my initial visit with the Eye Doctor with two kinds of eyes for the choosing, I was discussing this interesting dynamic of my perception of the Medicare Eye versus the Rich People’s Eye with a close friend of mine and out of the blue my friend told me she wanted to give me the Rich People’s Eye for my birthday.   I was astonished, touched, and, frankly, overwhelmed by her generosity but told her I couldn’t accept her largesse.   She countered with the irrefutable argument that it was her gift to offer and she would be disappointed if I rejected it.   So there you are.   In one of those quirks of fate and vicissitudes of life, as my daddy used to say, I called the Eye Doctor’s office and signed up for the Rich People’s Eye.

                Everyone who knew I was having the cataract surgery had a story to share about how uneventful it would be.   Nothing to it.   Outpatient surgery in the morning and return the next day for the doctor to do the follow-up review of his work.   What could be easier?   Indeed, the procedure went just like that for me.   I went in to the eye center on a Tuesday morning and came home with my Rich People’s Eye by noon.   The first thing I noticed was the difference in color and that’s when my game began.   The game goes like this:   I close my left eye and open my right Rich People’s Eye.  I went upstairs to my office when my friend brought me home and the room looked so bright and the gray walls seemed to be a different color if I closed my left eye. Magic!!   My right eye now sees life in vivid bright colors and my vision is nearly the same in that eye as it is for people who don’t have to wear glasses.

                So I can still play the game four months later because I never got even the Medicare left eye.   The evil gods of herpes zoster, or shingles as they are more commonly known, struck a mighty blow against my Rich People’s Eye two days following the routine cataract surgery and the battle was on.   Since I was familiar with these enemies from previous wars in the same eye, I wasn’t too surprised at their appearance but I was most assuredly unprepared for their ferocity.   It has taken four months, three doctors, two French hens and a partridge in a pear tree to send these evil gods away.   I can only now begin to contemplate a new Medicare left eye.

                In the interim, I play my game with no winners or losers because I have no actual opponents.   It’s simply me and my view of the world.  This morning while I played the game and lay in bed with my dog snoring quietly beside me, my mind drifted to how people see the world and then you know how the mind takes these strange curves like a good baseball pitcher throws?   Well, I thought of the activists who are engaged in a political movement known as Occupy Wall Street.  Hundreds of people are protesting their frustration with the disparity in assets and liabilities in the population of the United States by moving into and settling in the Wall Street financial district in New York City in a peaceful statement of dissatisfaction with the status quo.  It is a movement spreading to other cities in other states, and my mind made a connection to my Rich People’s Eye proposal versus my Medicare Eye option.   Wasn’t this really the heart of the problems in our world in a microcosmic view?   Game on.  

                 We in the United States are now beginning to experience the financial hardships not seen in our country since The Great Depression.   Our financial institutions that manipulate the markets which move world economies have a Rich People’s Eye and tunnel vision marked by greed and self-centeredness.   Hedge funds, smedge funds – they’re like casinos.   The House always wins.   Gone are the days when workers are valued for the quality of their work and not their abilities to take short cuts.  The amazing prosperity and wealth generated by some of the Baby Boomers in the Post-World War II Era of technological advances and innovations in communications have been the gold standard by which all nations measure their own achievements.   Are we as good as the Americans?   Are we better than the Americans?   Why aren’t we rich like the Americans?   And even if we have as much money as the Americans, why are they so cool and hip?   Thank God we still rank first in one category according to a survey published on AOL this week.  We are very cool.

                Now we see China and India and the Middle Eastern countries controlling much of the wealth Americans have created because we have sold our collective souls to the company stores as Tennessee Ernie Ford so aptly sang in the classic country lyrics for Sixteen Tons.  “You load sixteen tons and what do you get/ Another day older and deeper in debt/ St.Peter don’t you call me ‘cause I can’t go/ I owe my soul to the company store.”    Or in our case to Bank of America or Citigroup or Chase or Goldman Sachs or Beijing or Saudi Arabia or Kabul, et.al.   We are adrift in a sea of debt and the waves crash relentlessly against our shores without relief.

                Whew.   I need to play a different game.   My Rich People’s Eye has put me in a world of hurt and led to pondering and mulling over and ruminating to beat the band.   Truth seems to be stranger than fiction and much more stressful.   Let’s see.   Where did I put that Cowgirls at the Roundup manuscript?

                 

  • Sallie and Chance – An Unusual Love Story


    Ok, so I promised to include new material not in I’ll Call It Like I See It – yet!   Here’s a fresh story hot off the presses…hope you enjoy.

     

    SALLY AND CHANCE – AN UNUSUAL LOVE STORY

     

                If you spend time in a small town in Texas, you can be pretty sure you’ll meet a storyteller or two and be thoroughly entertained with gossipy tales about town politics and politicians or a hurricane that blew through a few years ago or the high school football team that won state or the best game the Aggies and Longhorns ever played or whatever happened to the Cowboys anyway when an Arkansas boy named Jerry Jones bought them or why did the Houston Oilers have to move to Tennessee?   Most likely you’ll find out who has the best chicken fried steak and hamburgers in town and the name of the newest Mexican food restaurant that’s run by authentic Hispanics and not one of those dagnabit chains.   The number one topic in every small town in southeast Texas in the summer of 2011 for sure, however, has been the drought, as in no rain.   Not a drop for weeks.   Record triple-digit temperatures for days and no rain to cool off anything or anybody.   And so on.  My listening ear was almost on autopilot and I could nod my head at appropriate intervals and tsk! tsk! about the weather with the best of them.

                And then I met Sally, and no my name isn’t Harry, but Sally woke me up with a real Texas love story.   Good storytellers can appear in the strangest places and most unexpected times, and this one was no exception.  

                My friend Carol and I drove over to Tomball, a small town between our home town of Montgomery and Houston, the giant behemoth of a city forty miles southeast of us.   We both took items to be framed because Carol said she knew the best frame shop in the county and it was in Tomball.   She knew the woman and her husband who ran the shop and vowed they were the best framers in the business.   Well, that was good enough for me.   Carol was a reliable resource for all things artsy craftsy antiquey and anything in between.

                When we entered the little shop, I saw it was an art gallery as well as a frame shop but wasn’t surprised because many retail stores combine the two, particularly in a town the size of Tomball with its population of 9,089.   I could also see right away I would love the unpretentious shop because much of the art displayed on the walls and scattered about on easels was Texana.   You know what I mean.  Cowboys and cows, boots and spurs, horses, Indian chiefs – all the nostalgic western images that made Texans, both native and transplanted, believe they remembered who they were.   You either got it and liked it or didn’t get it and made fun of it.   I got it.

                The shop was empty except for Sally and her husband Bill.   The first thing I noticed about this woman was her hair.   She had big hair, as we used to say when we described my Aunt Thelma’s signature beehive hairdo or the coiffures of the women who attended the Pentecostal Holiness Church.   Sally’s suspiciously colored reddish blonde white hair was swept up and back and appeared to be longer than it probably was.   Regardless, it was big and suited the woman who greeted us with a smile the same size as her hair.   She exchanged pleasantries with Carol who introduced me to Sally and Bill and explained our mission.   We had brought our assortment of pictures and posters and prints in with us and Sally escorted us to the back of the shop where we could lay them out to be measured and matched with mats and frames.   Bill disappeared into his work room.

                Carol told me to go first with my things and I began to put a few pictures on the counter top in front of Sally who sat down and reached for her measuring tape.   But then, she seemed to lose interest in the job ahead of her and launched into a monologue about the heat this summer.   And could we believe it?   Lightning struck her air conditioning unit at her house earlier this week and she and Bill had been without cool air for two days and nights.   The first night they turned on all the fans they could find and toughed it out but last night she had looked at Bill around 8:30 and told him they had to go spend the night in a motel because she couldn’t stand the heat.   Now Sally wasn’t a small woman and I could empathize with her need for cool air and found myself caught up in the drama of spending the night in the Comfort Inn to flee the hot humid natural air of a house struck by lightning.  

                Sally embellished the story with disclosures of her being a member of the Tomball Volunteer Fire Department and some ancillary marshall’s role with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department that allowed her and Bill to drive a county vehicle.   I settled in for the long haul when I recognized Sally was the genuine article: a good ol’ gal Texas storyteller.   I noticed Carol slipped away to browse through the shop.   She evidently had heard some of these stories before.

                Sally interspersed her stories with getting down to the framing business at hand and periodically produced a frame for me to consider along with mats of various colors and textures.   I remarked that I thought the pictures in her shop were great and that I loved Texana.   She stopped measuring and her eyes lit up with the excitement of discovering a kindred spirit.   She asked me if I had noticed the pictures at the front near the cash register.   I hadn’t.

                “Well, I want you to go take a look at them right now,” Sally said.   “They’re pictures of me and Chance, the love of my life.   Go on.   Have a look.”

                I obediently followed her instructions and walked over to see the two 8 x 10 glossy photos hanging on the wall next to the check-out counter.   One was a black-and-white photo of a younger Sally in a western outfit with three not unattractive cowboys posing with her.   They stood next to a large Brahman bull.   I tried to pick out the one who was Chance.   The other photo was in color.   Again, it was a younger version of Sally in a rodeo outfit with her arm around the same bull.   I walked back to Sally and told her I thought the pictures were great and wondered which one was Chance.

                “Chance is the Brahman bull,” she said and pronounced it bray-man.   I had always called it brah-man.   “Wasn’t he beautiful?”  Sally asked in a reverent tone.   I’m sure I looked surprised and she chuckled as if she and I now shared a wonderful secret.   Chance the Bull was the love of her life.  I waited for the whole story. 

                “I got him at an auction when he was ten years old,” she said.   “My husband at the time, not Bill, said I ought not to take a chance on him but I looked right into that bull’s eyes and we had a connection.   A real connection.   It was love at first sight.   So we got him, and I named him Chance.   I had him for more than eleven years and that bull was the sweetest and gentlest animal I ever knew.   I’ve had dogs meaner than him.   I used to ride him in rodeos and the parades for the rodeos and he never minded the noise and fuss people made over him as long as I was with him.   He was oblivious to everyone but me.   It was love at first sight all right, and he loved me as much as I loved him for as long as he lived.   I’ve never felt the pure love I felt from that bull from any person in my life including my husbands and children and grandchildren.”

                She took a breath and continued.   I didn’t dare interrupt her.

                “He got to be so popular in Texas that Letterman’s people called and asked us to come to New York to be on The Late Night Show.   So we put Chance in his trailer and off we went to New York City to be on tv.   The deal was supposed to be David Letterman was going to climb up and sit on Chance in front of his live audience and of course I would be standing right there with him.   Well, honey, you should’ve seen those New York City folks’ faces when I walked Chance through the tv studio and I was never prouder of my big guy.   He didn’t pay them any mind at all.”

                “Really?” I exclaimed.   “Did David Letterman climb up on your bull?”

                “I’m just getting to that,” Sally replied as she warmed to the storytelling.   “I was waiting in the little room before we were to go on and watching the commercials at the break when I felt someone standing behind me.   You know how you can tell when somebody’s behind you.”

                I nodded, and she pressed on.

                “Well, it was David Letterman in the flesh,” Sally said.   “I must have looked kinda funny at him because he said, ‘Listen, lady, are you going to make sure nothing happens to me with that bull of yours?’  So I said, ‘Mr. Letterman, as long as I’m with Chance, you’re as safe as if you were in your own mother’s arms.’   He smiled and said that was good enough for him.   But the funniest thing was when we went on the air, he chickened out at the last minute and wouldn’t get close to Chance.   But, then, the audience took over and made such a production that he ended up getting on him for about a second.   He couldn’t believe how gentle my Chance was but he wasn’t interested in pushing his luck, let me tell you.”   Sally laughed and stopped talking.   She began to fidget with the mats for my pictures.

                “Wow,” I said.   “That was some story.   You and Chance were tv stars.   Amazing.   Whatever happened to him?”

                “Oh, he died an old man’s death,” Sally said.   “Peaceful as he could be, but it nearly broke my heart.   I cried for days when I lost that bull.   But, I’ll tell you something about Chance.   Some of those professors at A & M (Texas A & M University) took skin cells from my big fellow and they cloned him.   Yessiree, and they cloned him and called him Chance II.   First successful cloning of a Brahman anywhere.”

                “You’re kidding,” I exclaimed.   “Did you ever go see him?   Was he just like your Chance?”

                “I didn’t go for a long time,” Sally said.   “But my husband  finally convinced me to go  and yes, he looked exactly like my beloved Chance.   Exactly like him.   But you know what was different?   The eyes.   They were the same color as my Chance’s eyes but we had no bond.   No connection.   He let me pet him but I wouldn’t trust much more than that.   He didn’t have Chance’s soul.”   She took off her glasses and wiped a few tears from her eyes.   I was mesmerized by the story and pictured her trying in vain to recapture her lost love in an experimental lab at A & M.   So close – and yet so far away.

                Sally told me other stories that afternoon while I made my selections for frames and mats from her suggestions.   She had started riding wild bulls in rodeos when she was forty-one years old and had ridden for a year but retired when the broken bones and bruises became too much for her battered body.   I tried to figure out how old Sally was and guessed she was in her early seventies and wondered how many stories she could tell to her customers who were good listeners.   She finished with my items and gave me a total that was reasonable for the work she and Bill were going to do. And a bargain when you consider the storytelling was free.  I looked at the clock and realized we’d fiddled with my pictures for forty-five minutes.   Carol must be ready to kill me, I thought.

                Luckily, she wasn’t and I waited for her to pick out her mats and frames.   Sally stuck to her business, and Carol and I left a little while later.    On the way home I asked Carol if she’d heard Sally’s stories about Chance and she said she’d heard them before today but they were good ones so you didn’t mind overhearing them again.   I smiled and said I was already looking forward to my next trip to Tomball.   I was a sucker for a good love story and Sallie knew how to tell one.

  • Easter: Comes the Resurrection


                   “Are you looking for Selma?” someone asked.

                I turned around to see an attractive, young Latino woman with a name tag indicating she worked in the assisted-living facility where my mother lived.  She smiled at me.

                “Yes,” I said.  “I am.”

                “She’s in our church service that’s just getting started.  I’ll take you to her.”

                I followed her down the hall past the main dining room.  I recognized several of the women who were preparing the tables for the Sunday noon meal.  It was Easter Sunday, and the tables looked lovely with centerpieces of fresh colorful flowers.  The main dining room was a very large, bright room with a row of windows in the rear that offered good views of the manicured back yard.  The round tables seated eight people.  The napkins and table cloths were white linen.  It was like a dining room in a resort hotel, or on the Titanic, I thought as I walked past it.

                “Here we are,” Rosa said.  She pointed to a room on our right.  I stepped into the space as she opened the door for me.

                The small, white, windowless room looked more suitable for a clandestine rendezvous than a worship service.  But the cluster of seated parishioners waited expectantly as an older man in a dark suit and tie supervised a younger man and woman as they prepared to lead the faithful on this holiest of days.  I searched the group for my mother but didn’t find her.

                “Sheila, is that you?  Well, darling, you didn’t call me.  I can’t believe it!”  I heard my mother’s voice and searched for the source.  And there she was, sitting in a wheel chair in the front row that consisted of six women in wheel chairs.  That’s why I hadn’t found her.  I wasn’t looking at the row of wheel chairs because I had never seen my mother in one before.  I was stunned and heart-broken.  Since my last visit a month ago, she wasn’t able to move on her own.  I walked to her and gave her a big hug and kissed her cheek.

                “I know I didn’t call.  I wanted to surprise you,” I said to her.  “I hope you’re glad I came?”

                She nodded, and her face lit up with genuine joy.  “Oh, yes.”

                Rosa brought a chair for me and set it next to my mother.  She introduced me to the volunteer priest and his assistants—a young married couple who were helping for the special service.

                “This is my daughter, Sheila,” my mother said to them.  “She’s come all the way from South Carolina.  It’s a thousand miles to South Carolina.” 

                They murmured their appreciation for my journey.  Then, they returned to their preparations as they lit votive candles placed on an old, tiny, wooden table next to the brown lectern a few feet away from us.  The trio appeared to be a bit disorganized as they attempted to separate well-worn prayer booklets from newer handouts made especially for Easter.  We were close enough to hear them discussing their roles for the service while they distributed the materials to the residents.

                “These people are Catholics, so we read a lot from books they bring,” my mother confided to me in a tone that was not her quiet voice.  “The songs are awful.  Nobody plays any music.”

                Indeed, Mom was right.  We read from the booklets whenever we all found the same page.  Our liturgies were frequently interrupted by arguments among the women in the front row involving page numbers and the bold lettering of responses.  The priest and young couple appeared unfazed and totally at ease with these outbursts regarding the order of worship and general confusion.  They stopped, turned pages for the women, and moved bravely forward with the readings of the day.  Thanks be to God.

                Mom was also right about the music.  It was terrible.  I felt sorry for the poor priest who tried to inspire us to sing.  Evidently, very few members of the makeshift congregation were practicing Catholics.  Those who were had forgotten the un-melodic songs.  Everyone attempted to make a joyful noise, but, in the end, the tunes lacked eighteenth-century chord structure, and the priest eventually gave up on us.  The room breathed a collective sigh of relief.

                The service culminated with the Eucharist, or Holy Communion.  One slight problem was that no one remembered to bring the wine representing the blood of Christ.  No matter.  The younger couple had brought the wafers purporting to be the body of Christ, and they moved through the room offering the bread to each member of the congregation.  Wine wasn’t mandatory for real communion, as their sweet smiles surely fed the souls gathered in that room.  Amen.

               When the service was over, Rosa came to collect her group that needed an escort to their area.  I told her I would take Mom, and I pushed my mother down the hall past the main dining room to the Memory Care Unit.  It was a short distance in literal measurements, but the length of the hallway spanned two different worlds.  I reached the locked door to the Unit and discovered the security code had changed since my previous visit.  I left Mom at the door and went to get the new code from an attendant.  By the time I returned, another woman stood behind Mom’s wheel chair.   She had decided to push the chair for some reason known only to her.   I held the door for them, and she rolled Mom into the secured section.

                She continued to push the chair slowly through the community room and down a smaller hallway to Mom’s room.  As I opened the door, she wheeled my mother into her room and stood silently behind her.  Mom seemed to notice her for the first time.

                “What are you doing here?” she asked sharply.  “You don’t belong in my room.”

                “They told me to come in here,” the woman replied defensively.  “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

                “Yes, you do,” my mother said with a degree of exasperation.  “And, I want you to go this minute.”

                “Mom, I’ll take her to her room,” I said.  “Give me a second, and I’ll be right back.”

                The elderly woman was attractive, but she had a vacant look in her eyes that appealed to me for direction.  I took her hand and led her out of Mom’s room and down the hall to the left.

                “Do you know which room is yours?” I asked her.  She shook her head.

                We stopped at each of the five apartment doors on Mom’s hall.  It was like a college dormitory, I thought.  Each door had the occupant’s name on a small brass plate.  We stopped in front of every one of them.

                “Are you Alice?” I asked.  She considered that name thoughtfully, and then shook her head.

                “Are you Mary?” I asked at the next door.  Without hesitation, she shook her head vigorously.  Definitely not Mary.

                “Well, I know you aren’t Ben,” I said, as we moved along.  Apparently, she wasn’t so sure.  She stared at Ben’s door.

                I felt someone behind me and turned to see Rosa walking quickly toward us.

                “Willa.  Here you are,” Rosa said.  “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.  We were worried.”

                The woman whose name was Willa dropped my hand and reached for Rosa’s.  She smiled and relaxed.  Someone knew who she was.

                “I was running out of doors,” I said.  “I’m glad you found us.  Willa was fine, but I think she was worried, too.”

                Rosa led Willa away, and I watched the two of them.  Willa was like a lost gentle lamb that had been rescued by a familiar shepherd.

                “It’s time for lunch,” Rosa said.  “Do you need help with Selma?”

                “No, I’ll bring her now.”

                I dreaded lunch in the Memory Care Unit.  We ate in a modest room around the corner from the common living area.  The tables had the same white linen napkins and table cloths like the ones in the main dining room and a reasonable attempt for floral centerpieces, but it was decidedly different.  The first thing I noticed on this Easter Sunday was there were fewer people in the group.  The tables were arranged to seat two or three now instead of the longer ones that had accommodated six and eight.  Many of the usual faces were gone, and I wondered if death had taken them, or if the economy forced their caregivers to move them.  I counted twelve, and I remembered the number had been twenty-two when Mom joined the Unit two and a half years ago.  Six of the twelve had been with her from the beginning.

                I knew the staff, and they made a place for Mom and me at a table for two.  This involved changing the routine seating arrangements and wasn’t easy.  Willa was sitting alone and happily exchanged her chair to sit in Mom’s regular place next to Jean, who showed her displeasure by slapping Mom’s hand when she moved.  Mom quickly notified everyone in the room, and Jean was properly admonished by the staff for her inappropriate behavior.  Jean and Mom had a shaky relationship at best, and I had a feeling this conflict wasn’t unusual.  Jean didn’t display a shred of contrition, and Mom forgot it ten seconds later when her fried chicken arrived.

                The food was delicious, and Mom and I both enjoyed the meal and being together.  She told me to be sure and save room for dessert because on Sunday, we got ice cream sundaes.  We did get them, and they were as good as she promised.  Our conversation was the only one in the room, however.  The others were quiet as the three women who served us moved among the residents to encourage them to eat.  Jean continued to pout and complained periodically that Mom was too loud and that the woman who was sitting with Mom wasn’t supposed to be there.  Communion with attitude.  Amen?

                The traditional Easter egg hunt came to us mid-afternoon through the children of the staff members.  The day was beautiful, and the fenced courtyard area was the perfect setting for a party.   Those in our lunch group pushed their walkers or were wheeled outside into the bright sunlight, and those who could sat in the Adirondack chairs under the portico.  I met three other daughters who were visiting their mothers today and was glad I was there with my mother.

              Willa was one of several women who made their own Easter bonnets in a pre-party craft activity.  She was quite pleased with it and carefully held it in place on her head the entire afternoon.  Mom missed the bonnet fun, but she loved watching the children find the eggs with the candy in them.

                The Latino women who took care of my mother and the others brought their children to enjoy the search for the pastel-colored plastic eggs filled with candy in the tranquil setting of the facility’s outdoors.  Eggs were hidden everywhere, including on and around the residents.  Jim, a tall, sad, unshaven man who never spoke and who struggled to move opened the egg Rosa placed in his shirt pocket and ate the candy before the kids arrived.  He wasn’t waiting.

                The small group of children burst into the courtyard with an exuberance all youngsters bring to filling an Easter basket.  Ages ranged from four to twelve, with one six-month-old baby girl held by her mother.  They were dressed in their Sunday best.  Little boys had ties and jackets, and little girls were in pretty dresses.  It could’ve been a movie set, I thought, because they were strikingly good-looking.  They flew around grabbing eggs with gusto, and their baskets filled quickly.  They were noisy, laughing, talking, and incredibly alive.

                It was the Resurrection.  For a few brief minutes, the stones were rolled away from the minds buried deep in the tombs of the bodies that kept them hidden.  The children raced around the residents searching for treasures and exclaiming with delight when one was discovered.  One little boy overlooked a blue egg under a wheel chair, and Jean tapped his shoulder and pointed it out to him.  He was elated, and flashed a brilliant smile at her.  She responded with a look of pure delight.  The smiles and murmurings of the elderly were clear signs of their obvious joy and happiness that proclaimed the reality of Easter.  Hallelujah. We were all risen.

                Memories were made and lost that afternoon.  The children who came to the place where their mothers worked to find eggs among the old people were unlikely to forget this day.  Years from now some will tell the stories of the Easter Egg Hunt with the Ancient Ones.  The stories will be as different as their own journeys will take them.  For my mother and her friends, no stories will be told because they won’t remember.  My mother doesn’t know I was there for her on Easter this year, and that’s to be expected.  But, I remember I was, and it’s enough for now.

                I was born on Easter Sunday morning in April 1946, and that makes this year my sixty-fourth Easter.  I recollect a few of the earliest ones from my childhood, and they are good memories because they are about the love and warmth of my family.  I also remember having a hard time finding eggs in the church hunts.  But, to be honest, in recent years, Easter Sundays have been difficult to distinguish from any other day of the week.  When I moved away from my family in Texas as a young adult to explore my identity and resolve my conflicts within myself, I didn’t know I’d be gone for forty years.  I also had no way of knowing one of the costs of my freedom from family togetherness was my absence from family rituals.  Distance, travel time, money, job obligations, girlfriends—these were the obstacles I had to overcome for visits home.  Or, maybe they were just excuses.  I usually made the trip at Christmas, and less frequently, one more time in the summer.  But never for Easter.

                This Easter was special for me because it was a day with no excuses necessary.  I shared a Sunday sundae with my mother today at a table neither of us could have envisioned a few years before.  It was just the two of us, and, if there were barriers between us that once seemed too impenetrable, they were now lost in the cobwebs of time. 

                We are all risen, indeed.

  • A Thousand Miles From South Carolina


    A Thousand Miles From South Carolina.

  • Self Pay


                   The temperature in the waiting room was cool as I signed the doctor’s daily appointment register at the front desk.  I was number eight on the afternoon’s sign-in sheet.  I looked at the line across from my name, and the moment I had dreaded for months was upon me.  I had played and replayed the question in my mind.

                 Any changes to insurance since last visit? Yes / No     

                I circled “Yes” and spoke to the young, attractive receptionist, who was intently focused on her computer screen and hadn’t appeared to notice me.  Her expression was harried, as if she was so far behind in her duties she would never catch up.

                “Excuse me,” I said.  “I circled ‘Yes’ today for change of insurance because I no longer have insurance.”  I looked apologetically at her and spoke in my best “inside” voice.  I didn’t want the other people in the room to hear me confess my failure to produce the key to the kingdom of good health care.        Her fingers froze on the computer keyboard.  Her reaction confirmed my biggest fears.  She sighed heavily and began to disassociate herself from her mental and physical connection to the World of Important Matters.  Without glancing at me, she began to rummage through manila file folders in a drawer beneath her workstation.  At last, she pulled a single form from a folder, wrote something on it, attached it to a clipboard, and pointed to a round glass holder containing four ballpoint pens.  “Fill this out and bring it back to me when you’re finished,” she said flatly.  “Bring an ID with you, too.”  She still hadn’t looked at me, and as I picked up the clipboard, I had a sinking feeling that I was wearing Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak.

                I selected a pen and sat down to complete the form.  It took me longer to pull my driver’s license out of the stubborn leather slot in my billfold than it did to finish the paperwork.  Name, address, telephone number, date of birth, emergency contact, social security number.  The remainder of the lengthy document required detailed insurance information, but that had been marked through with a large “X” by the receptionist when she handed me the form.  She had written SELF PAY above the “X.”  In red ink.  I felt a sense of impending doom.  

               I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t have health insurance, and I had recently celebrated my sixty-fourth birthday.  Eighteen months ago, my employment was terminated due to a medical disability from ophthalmic herpes zoster, or shingles, in my right eye and other places in my head and on my face.  I participated in my employer-sponsored COBRA plan during those eighteen months for ongoing coverage, but on day one of the month nineteen—BAM!  No more insurance.  I had explored alternatives for personal insurance policies, but costs were prohibitive.  Medicare, the government-sponsored program for senior citizens, wasn’t available until my next birthday.  Alas, I was like a tightrope walker on a rope suspended high above a river rising as quickly as the price of my medications.  I was alarmed.  No, beyond alarmed.  I was afraid of a future with no insurance safety net.

                I took the clipboard and ID to the front and laid it down on the receptionist’s desk.  She was again immersed in her computer screen and clearly involved in the World of Important Matters.  Then, without looking up, she said, “Thanks.  Have a seat, and I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”  My Invisibility Cloak worked well, I thought.

                I returned to the chair I had claimed and sat down.  I looked around the large waiting area and saw five other people waiting to see Dr. Thong—one of a group of four dermatologists who shared the practice.  Their business had clearly expanded in the ten years I had been an “established” patient.  The building was the same as when I first started coming to see them, but now the group occupied the entire space.  The entrance was moved, and the lobby area was much more elaborate.  A new, large, trendy flat-screen television hung from the wall to allow good visibility from any vantage point.  One of the major cable news networks showed financial data from Wall Street at the moment, but the sound level was appropriately low and inoffensive.  The brown faux leather chairs were definitely an upgrade from the uncomfortable ones in the previous lobby, too.  The quiet room shouted first-class.

               Two hands on a large clock on the wall near the front door marked our waiting time.  I was at twenty minutes when I heard the receptionist call my name.

           “Miss Morris,” she said.

           I rose and walked to her desk.  For the first time, she looked at me.  Not smiling or friendly, but she did look.

         ” Here’s your ID.  Someone will call you in a few minutes.”  She had placed my ID on the counter.  Was it possible my I nvisibility Cloak had been stolen while I listened to the financial news?

         I picked up my driver’s license and sat down again.  I busied myself for several minutes with re-arranging the items in my billfold so that my ID was easier to reach.  That done, I daydreamed about the old days when I had good health and little interest in doctors or insurance.  Occasionally, the door to the examination rooms opened, and a nurse called someone’s name.  At thirty-three minutes and counting, I noticed that only two of us were left in the waiting area.  Time must truly be money for Dr. Thong, I thought.

           “Miss Morris,” I heard.  I was startled from my musings about the lobby, doctors, medicine, and insurance.

          I stood and walked toward the smiling lovely young nurse who held the door to the examination rooms for me.  She was dressed in a loosely fitting blue uniform that looked like the ones worn by actors in the medical dramas on television nowadays.  Not the super-starched white uniforms of the medical series of the 1970s like Marcus Welby, M. D., but she looked good in blue.  She was pretty in that wholesome all-American look and seemed very efficient as she carried what I presumed was my chart.  Her smile belied her no-nonsense demeanor.

         “And how are we doing today?”  She motioned me to follow her past the maze of tiny rooms with the doors shut.

         “Well, it’s not my best day, but I’ve had worse.”  I walked as fast as I could to keep pace with her.

          She smiled on, indicating a room with an open door, and I went in first.  I sat down on the large, gray, leather exam chair with a thin layer of white paper pulled over it to prevent my germs from being spread to the next person.  The agreeable young nurse continued smiling as she sat on a stool across from me.  She studied my chart thoughtfully.

         “Are we having any new problems today?” she asked.

         “Actually, I am,” I replied.  “I have a new trouble spot on my face that’s been there for two months.  It’s probably like the other ones Dr. Thong biopsied last year, but he always wants to know about the ones that don’t go away.”  I had a history of malignancies from skin cancers on my face, and any lesions from the herpes virus that refused to disappear in a reasonable time were suspicious, according to Dr. Thong.  He was scrupulous about early detection of any potential problems.  I had always admired that quality in him.  An ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure.  Wasn’t that what my daddy had always told me?

         I saw the nurse was taking notes, and I added, “Oh, and I got a tick bite about six weeks ago when I was in Texas.  It still hurts and itches, and I wondered if it’s okay.  It’s in an awkward spot at the top of my right hip, and I can’t see it.”

        “Tick bite,” she said, and wrote more.  Her good humor seemed to be fading for some reason, though.  The perky smile was gone, and that made me uneasy.  “I see you’re due for your annual full-body check today.  I also see you have no insurance.  Do you still want to do the exam?”

          I was taken aback by the question.  Was it possible to not have an annual check-up?  The thought had never occurred to me.  I had been having annual checkups, well, annually, for my entire life.  My mother took me every year when I was a child, and I continued each year of my adult life.  So, at sixty-four years of age, I’d had my share of regular doctor visits.  Of course, I reasoned quickly, maybe that just applied to my primary care physician.  The dermatologist might be different.  But, then, they had never given me a choice before.  What was going on here?  My anxiety level leaped ahead several notches.

         “Well, yes,” I said.  “I’ll go ahead with the full-body exam.”

         “Okay.”  Closing my chart, she stood up and went to a cabinet in the little room.  She retrieved a large neatly folded piece of white paper and handed it to me.  “Here’s a sheet for you. Get undressed, and Dr. Thong will be with you in a few minutes.”

         I took off my clothes and unfolded the white paper sheet.  It was enormous and unwieldy, but I managed to cover my naked body in what I imagined was an absurd look.  I now sat on paper and was covered with paper.  When I moved, the paper made an annoying crackling sound.  I was very uncomfortable and quite cold.  My mental state matched my physical discomfiture.  Would that man never get here?  I looked at my watch, and my 2:00 p.m. appointment had lasted forty-five minutes so far.

         Shortly thereafter, I heard whispered conversation outside my door followed by a quick knock and the appearance of Dr. Thong with yet another nurse.  They were both dressed in the same spiffy, blue, multi-purpose unisex uniforms.

         Dr. Thong looked remarkably the same every time I saw him.  He is a small Asian man in his late forties with flawless skin and an inscrutable expression.  His eyes betray nothing, but they are not unkind.  When I worked as a stockbroker before my retirement, he indulged in small talk and liked to give me his favorite stock tips.  He amused himself that way, and I was happy to have something to distract myself while he inspected my complexion.  Post-retirement chitchat was limited, however.

         “So, let’s have a look at you,” he said with no preliminaries.  He began with my hands and arms and made his way to my back.  “And, where is this tick bite that everyone is so concerned about?  Oh, I see it now.”  He muttered something to the nurse who wrote feverishly on my chart. 

         “Okay, nothing to worry about there.  It’ll get better on its own.”  With that dismissal, he moved around to the front and concentrated on my face.  “Now, let’s see this other problem a little closer.”  He hummed to himself thoughtfully.  “How long has it been there?”

         “A couple of months,” I said.  “It just doesn’t want to go away.”

         “Well, let’s see if we can make it go away faster.”  He motioned to the nurse, who handed him a contraption that looked like a bug spray can.  He gave three quick squeezes that made loud puffs of very cold air that hit the offensive red spot on my face.  Then, I felt an unpleasant burning sensation.  He took another look, appeared satisfied, and returned the can to the nurse, who struggled to write notes and handle the can simultaneously.

         “That should do the trick.  Very good luck,” he said.  “No problems.”

         “Thank you,” I said.

         He turned to leave and had his hand on the door.  “Anything else this time?”

         “No,” I replied.

         “Goodbye, then.”  He was gone.  No biopsies, no be sure to make an appointment for six months, no admonitions to wear sunscreen, nothing.  Just three puffs, and he was up, up, and away.  I sat transfixed and horrified by the visit.  I felt a “disconnect” between this doctor and my well-being.  I had a vision of being dismissed as an old woman whose health no longer required attention in a world of cheerful young medical professionals who moved briskly from one tiny sterile room to the next without making eye contact with the patients in those rooms.  It was a scary feeling.

         “You can get dressed now,” the nurse said.  “Just carry your chart to the checkout desk.  Follow the arrows.”  With that, she was gone, too.

         I glanced at my watch.  It was now 2:50.  My annual body check, complete with tick bite and face freezing, lasted approximately five minutes.  It took me longer to retrieve my driver’s license from my billfold for the receptionist. 

         I got dressed and followed the signs to the checkout desk.  A middle-aged woman wearing tiny reading glasses looked away from her computer screen to take my chart that now read SELF PAY.  I saw her comparing numbers in columns highlighted with different colors on a laminated sheet of paper.  Evidently, charges were relative, and she wanted to verify the amount for each procedure.

         “The total for today is $128,” she said sweetly.  “Will that be cash, check, debit or credit card?”  She paused, and then added, “I see no follow-up appointment is scheduled.  Do you think you’ll want to come back next year?”  Her tone was hopeful, and I saw she must be an asset to the practice by facilitating a warmer atmosphere during the payment process.

        “Debit card,” I said and handed my plastic card to her.  “I’m not sure about coming back, but thanks for asking.  I’ll call if I have a problem.”

        She quickly handled my payment and gave me my receipt.  I thanked her again and exited through the lobby area.   The hands on the clock on the wall showed 3:10 p.m.

         I officially joined the ranks of millions of Americans who are uninsured with little fanfare.  I now totally understood the magic of the phrase, “Your co-pay today is $35, and I’ll be happy to file your insurance claim for you.  May we schedule your next appointment?”  I complained each year that my co-pay increased.  I complained loudly that Dr. Thong was an “out-of-network provider,” which made my annual deductible higher for him.  And, of course, I complained regularly about the exorbitant cost of insurance.  Who didn’t?  It was acceptable cocktail-hour conversation.

        Now, we see through a glass darkly, I thought.

        In the spirit of fair play, I located my statement from my appointment with Dr. Thong the prior year.  I had two biopsies and an annual exam that day.  The office visit was $90, and the biopsies with laboratory analysis totaled $574.  I paid the $35 co-pay on the day of service, and my insurance carrier negotiated a reduction of $388 for reasonable and customary charges against the bill.  The insurance company eventually paid $45 to Dr. Thong, and I owed the balance of $196 to apply toward my annual deductible.  On the surface, my “self-pay” visit this year saved me $103.  Not to mention the fact that I no longer pay those outrageous insurance premiums.  Why don’t I feel better?

                  ———————————————————————————–

    The debate on healthcare reform and public policy in the United States follows the political fortunes of the fortunate.  In a country that prides itself on offering hope and freedom for all, we often reserve quality health care for the few who are wealthy enough to afford it.  The issues are complicated, and the systems and their operatives are deeply entrenched by decades of corruption and abuse that will make positive change a battleground for many years.  To sum up succinctly, it’s a mess.

    As my daddy used to say, “When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember your initial objective was to drain the swamp.”

    On March 23, 2010, the Affordable Care Act became law in this country.  It’s an attempt to wrestle some of the alligators that love to snap at the reasonable objective of quality health care for every citizen.  This particular swamp won’t be drained quickly or completely, as an assault on the law continues by its opponents through the judicial system in 2011.   For me personally, Self Pay is over since I turned 65 in April of 2011 and am now covered by Medicare, but that’s another story with a different swamp of alligators.