The Doctor: Part I

Photo credit: tyger_lyllie via Foter.com / CC BY

“I hope you said you wanted plain yogurt, Granny, ‘cause I couldn’t remember what you told me when I got there.”

“Plain is fine. Would you bring it in here to the kitchen, please?”

Anna hauled the grocery bags onto the kitchen counter and her grandmother started putting them away. “Thanks for picking these up for me. I just don’t seem to have the strength to lift much of anything these days.”

Anna leaned against the counter and watched her grandmother move about the kitchen. She didn’t just look thinner. She looked shorter and her hair seemed to have gone gray overnight. “Are you sure you’re OK, Granny? You know I worry about you living all alone like this.”

Granny waved away her granddaughter’s concern. “I’m fine. I’m just old. I’ve been looking after myself for a long time. No reason I can’t keep right on doing what I’ve always done.”

“Except that you can’t even carry a bag of groceries anymore.”

Granny’s hand flapped in the air again as she dismissed Anna’s arguments. “Just part of getting old. Wait ’til you’re 67 and we’ll see how well you do.”

“Sixty-seven isn’t that old anymore,” said Anna. “Sixty is the new 40. Isn’t that what your friends are always telling me?”

“One person’s 67 is another’s 87 and vice versa. We all think we know how we’ll handle what’s coming until it actually comes. Life has a way of throwing you curve balls. I’m a little weak, but a little weakness never hurt anyone. Now I’m just a frail old lady, which means I pose no threat to anyone and that can be a good thing. I leave them alone. They leave me alone. Everybody’s happy.”

“I’m worried you might be a danger to yourself.”

“Nonsense!”

“What if something happens to you when you’re here alone and no one knows to come help you?”

“What could possibly happen to me in my own home?”

“You could fall. Something could fall on you. Then you’d be trapped and then what would you do?”

“You know I was kidding when I called myself a frail old lady, right?”

“I know you weren’t serious, but I was. These things happen and if no one’s here with you, it could be very dangerous. If you won’t have someone living with you, you should at least go to the doctor to get checked out. It could be more than just age.”

“No. No doctors.”

“Granny-“

“Absolutely not.”

“You can’t just-“

“I can’t what? I can’t decide what’s best for my own body? You think I don’t know what I’m dealing with better than a Pair of Balls?” Granny used the term for men that some women of the time had started using in retaliation when society decided women were useless except for reproductive purposes.

“Granny, that was a long time ago. Those things don’t happen anymore.”

“That’s what they said back then, too. We all told each other it couldn’t happen here. It couldn’t happen to us. And while we were so busy telling each other all that, guess what? It happened!”

“Well it’s not happening now. Sometimes terrible things happen, Granny, but then they get better. Now they’re better and now I think you need to go see a doctor.”

“I think I’m an old woman who’s earned the right to be left in peace.”

“You mean the right to die in peace.” The words were out of Anna’s mouth before she could stop them.

Granny’s lips formed a thin line and she looked straight in front of her. “Thank you for carrying in the groceries,” she said again in a flat tone.

Anna knew she should apologize, but she was too angry. Instead she left in a huff.

To be continued…

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