Go Ask Alice…when she's 94

Two weeks ago, Celia saw Mr. Fickle emerge from his apartment and dance down the hall to the drinking fountain. A few days later, Alice spotted him dancing along the sidewalk outside her window.

They enjoyed discussing these unusual sightings. After all, until this week it’s been a mild winter with a fair amount of sun for the Northwest. Mr. Fickle had been moving a lot more slowly than usual for the past few months, so perhaps this dancing combined with more light meant he was getting a second wind.

But then he took to wearing an overcoat nearly all the time, inside and out, sunshine or not.

Alice noticed that he will sit alone for hours in the cold and empty Rosary Room, the room where he was once the organizer and ringleader of daily prayers. The rosary group has disbanded, and he barely notices when someone walks past him on their way somewhere else.

Recently, an aide found him wandering the grounds and when she said hello, he told her he wasn’t sure where he lived.

Even though he kissed Alice (on the lips!) on New Year’s Eve, it was only a brief and noble gesture toward an old flirtation.

“He’s failing,” Alice told me quietly a few days ago, and followed this with a confession that she and Celia recently agreed that they had no fear of dying. “I wouldn’t mind,” Alice said, “and Celia agreed with me. She wouldn’t mind either.”

Alice is in good health, but Celia lives with a brutal cough caused by congestive heart failure. One son is chronically ill, but her daughter and another son live nearby. Nevertheless, Alice told me yesterday, at age ninety-five, Celia makes long journeys to the doctor in taxis by herself. Nothing the doctor says or does in these ten-minute appointments ever helps her much, and with no one to advocate for her it’s doubtful that these visits ever will make any difference.

Sometimes Alice wants to reach over and hold her friend’s wracked and shaking body, but this intimacy hasn’t been built into the friendship. Instead, a stoic and sympathetic waiting for the ordeal to pass is the best that can be offered. Eventually the inner storm ends and Celia can talk and pass notes back and forth again.

But last week the coughing wouldn’t stop. She could barely eat. It worsened to the point where she couldn’t sleep and stopped coming to the dining room for meals. Once again, her children seemed unhelpful.

I told Alice I’d take Celia to the hospital, which was clearly where she needed to go. After all, was it her heart this time too, or possibly pneumonia?

I called one of the med aides on Sunday and said I was on my way over, but she told me that Celia was already in the hospital. Apparently, the unhelpful son or daughter had suddenly turned helpful and taken her at last.

In addition to all this, Edie, who lives across from Alice, has not left her apartment for at least ten days. Another Edie has moved in down the hall. (Alice distinguishes the two by calling this new person “Laundry Edie” because she first met her in the laundry room). From Laundry Edie, Alice learned that Edie is too ill and frail to come to the dining room. Laundry Edie wasn’t able to supply any more information than that.

No doubt other lights at The Place are flickering as a sunny winter turns toward gloom with snow and rain, but these three are people Alice sees each day. They play important roles in her life, particularly Mr. Fickle (Howard) and Celia. About Celia she says, “I don’t know what I’ll do without her.” About Mr. Fickle she just shakes her head.

Lines for Winter

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

—Mark Strand