Aunt Gertie was my Mom’s great Aunt, which in turn made her my great-great aunt…
She lived in a nursing home for as long as I could remember…
The facility that she was in was a ten minute walk from my Grandmothers house, so often times when we were visiting Grandma, we would take a quick trip over to brighten Aunt
Gertie’s day…
I think we did, anyways, but in retrospect, a bunch of silly kids showing up right before your favorite program; Bowling for Dollars, came on, may not have been as much of a treat as we thought it was…
**On a side note…
I like bowling…
I LOVE dollars…
But I never could see the point in bringing the two together and televising them into one boring half hour in the name of entertainment…
I mean, I like to bowl… but don’t really enjoy watching complete strangers do it… even in person...
String after string after string…
Maybe you do…
It’s just my opinion….
Through the years, Aunt Gertie never seemed to age…
By that, I mean that she seemed like she could have been at least 100 ever since I was a little girl…
Every time I saw her, she still looked 100…
No More, No Less…
One of the most awkward things for me was that I never could really think of too many things to discuss with her…
I had a mental list of icebreakers, but somehow, I never could find the right time to use them…
A few of those included wanting to know just what the heck that smell was on the floor she lived on… was it food or bad breath or what?! It puzzled me (and it also gagged me, but I learned to take in a few deep breaths when I first arrived and usually, my sense of smell would deaden quickly)
I also always wanted to know just how she could stand it there… I mean, day in, day out… day after day after day… Very sad.
The last time that I went for a visit, I think I was 14 or 15. My sister and I walked over and unfortunately had gotten a terrible case of the giggles before we even stepped foot in the building…
We did manage to suck it up and hold it in until it was near the end of our visit…
We chatted with her and had made small talk for a while, when Aunt Gertie suddenly sat up and announced that she had to “make a call”
Call me dense, but I was so excited to have something to say to her, that I took that statement quite literally, and as she was shuffling away from us, I exclaimed, “I didn’t know you had your own phone!”
My sister looked at me in disbelief…
I mean according to her, ‘EVERYONE knows that means going to the bathroom!’
I felt stupid for a split second, and then I began to giggle… and she began to giggle…. and pretty soon we were laughing hysterically, yet totally silently, tears rolling down our faces…
Then it happened…
A loud and very long (and I’ll say I’m sorry in advance for saying it) wet sounding noise came from the direction of the bathroom…
This went on for a good ten or fifteen minutes on and off…
More silent convulsive laughing ensued…
By now, I was thinking that maybe we should just leave her a note and bolt out of there before she came out…
After all, our faces were all blotchy from laugh-crying and I didn’t trust myself to not completely fall to pieces whenever she finally did emerge from the 'phone booth'...
We decided to stick it out.
I tried desperately to think of anything to make me not laugh…
War…
Falling off a cliff…
Biting my tongue accidentally…
(Hey!… that really hurts and sometimes makes me cry…)
It worked.
Thank the Lord!!
She came out, and unfortunately for us, so did whatever odors occurred in there while she was making her call…
We said our goodbyes and left in a hurry…
I’m talking, quicker than a bunny!
We made it out of the building before we fell apart all over again…
Poor Aunt Gertie!
So old…
So frail…
And so without air freshener…
(How could she take it!?)
She died peacefully when she was close to 100…
She probably still didn’t look a day over 100…
The older I get, the more I think of how I could become like Aunt Gertie…
I’ve told everyone, if that ever happens, be sure to bring me a large supply of air fresheners, snacks and please don’t forget the gum!!
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