what do you say to a 94 year old lady

with a broken rib?

My mind was racing as I pulled Jim’s truck into the parking lot at Twin Oaks Memorial Hospital down the Harbour.

Though I’d driven by there countless times over the last fifty two years, I seldom used the parking lot.

Once for a week in the fall of 90’ when my granddad lay there dying.

Once for a visit to emerge when Laura cut the tips of one of her fingers off

Fun fact dear reader: when you have cancer and receive chemotherapy, frequently you lose feeling in your extremities. Tips of fingers become kinda useless and insensitive. This makes you clumsy and immune to pain and a great source of protein for the whole family.

This third visit was as welcome as the first two.

My nanny has taken a fall and broke a rib.

As I entered my mind raced for a joke

Don’t you think you’re a little past the whole ‘Humpty Dumpty’ thing Nanny?

Nah, then I’d have to follow up with some smart ass remark about my uncle being the king’s horses and king’s men. It didn’t work.

Or

Next time your try a backflip, make sure you have the crash mats out.

That didn’t work either. She has no room in her house for crash mats.

Finally I thought of this one:

If your bathtub is such a thrilling water park, let’s put an advert on the radio and sell tickets. We’ll make a killing.

Then?

Then I rounded the corner and saw her.

Why does lying in a hospital bed with television blaring make a person seem so small, so frail?

It’s like they make beds for eight foot tall people to make normal sized humans seem so very insignificant, so fragile.

Jimmy, how are things in your world?

She could barely mumble.

A lot better than it seems things are in yours Nanny. My world isn’t that great. I’m really worried about you.

She breathed and winced.

I broke a rib. It hurts so much.

I know.

I did - I broke ribs when I fell of that fucking horse and when I did there were times that death seemed like it would bring sweet relief from the pain. At ninety four, I could imagine what she was thinking. And none of it was pretty.

It’s just the worst pain - it only hurts when I breathe or move or…

I would take on every bit of this for you if I could Nanny.

I know Jimmy.

She faded into a painful drug induced slumber.

I sat beside her bed for forty minutes with the television blaring - Mass For Shut-ins.

I joined the voice as it blared the words that she said on so many Sundays, that I was taught as a child.

Our father, who farts in heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we go batshit on those who trespass against us
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil

She was just like me in church. She slept through the whole service.

Before I left I paused at the door and said the one thing that I needed to say.

I love you Nanny.