January 15, 2004 - 8:05 p.m.
Just before Christmas, when my parents had colds, I drove to Fredericksburg to take Grandmommy grocery shopping and to visit Granddaddy. It was lunchtime when we stopped by and he no longer sits in the front of the dining room. He was in the back, where the nurses line up residents who can no longer feed themselves. It was crowded and difficult to get Marcus's stroller through, so, while Grandmommy stayed with Granddaddy, I took the boys upstairs to visit Aunt Agnes, who had just moved in.
The boys weren't in moods to sit still and visit, so my stay with Agnes was brief. She had lost weight and resembled my great-grandmother so much. But it was nice to talk to someone at the home who could easily converse with you. She was lonely and missed her apartment, I think. She lacked visitors. Zachary was running down the hall to play with the water fountain again. I promised her I would come back and see her next time I came to see Granddaddy, in a few weeks.
Agnes died last night. She declined quickly after Christmas, spent some time in the hospital, and passed away in the nursing home. She was 92. That's even a little young in comparison with her siblings. Myrtle, the last of my great-grandmother's family, will be 98 next month.
I was supposed to be in Fredericksburg yesterday. But my grandmother has the cough and crud that's going around and the boys were scheduled for well baby visits and the second round of their flu vaccines today. I didn't want to risk exposing them to illness. And there was a threat of snow. So, although I promised Agnes I would visit her again, I didn't. Perhaps it's better to remember her as she was last month - lucid, well, and maybe a little bored - rather than frail and semiconscious.
There must be some pithy way to end this - something about life and death and everything else. But I can't think of anything at the moment.
