I sat among beautiful green leafy plants in the doctor’s office with people who had canes and walkers, and no smiles.
Health was just in the plants. Floating in the air were whispered words about prostate operations and how much long procedures hurt. Pain rested in face wrinkles, and twitching fingers that looked like rotten twigs.
The main word in the room sort of bounced off walls and soaked into the pile of cloth that covered stooped bodies that once flew airplanes. When you wait for hours among slightly moaning people you learn their lives. Appointments mean little with doctors. They are late at the hospital, have emergencies, and maybe are kissing their girlfriends, who knows why eight in the morning appointments last till after lunch? Well the central word is cancer. I guess the WORD was once polio or plague, but now it is the BIG ‘C’. It is said in whispers.
So I guess the people who wait once were young, and wore two piece bathing suits and dived off piers and drove fast cars with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. Now they wait for the doctors that are really too busy for them.
Me, well I was the only kid there, sitting with grandma. It was my turn to go to the doctor with her and write down what the doctor said, after asking all the questions she might forget.
In a room full of coughing and one who would let out little screams; I was in top shape. Grandma and I walked to the office, and she could barely see, and sort of hear. My eyes were corrected with glasses to what was called ’20/20, but grandma was mostly blind. But she never complained, said when asked, “I see just fine.”
So finally we got in for the doctor’s look over. He asked for complaints, and she said, “None that I can think of now.” I told him she couldn’t see, or hear. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Old age, how old are you now?”
When she said, “Ninety- three Jack”. He shrugged his shoulders again, like saying, ‘ See son’. How do you write movements of the shoulder in the red recorder book?
He said, “Well I’ve known you all my life Betsy”. He patted her on the arm, real friendly
All in all grandma was about as healthy looking as me. I was ten. Neither of us seemed to fit in the waiting room with really sick people and truly green plants.
Grandma died in her sleep the next month. I had written down nothing in my red recorder notebook. He had just said she was “Good to go.” I thought that meant ‘Healthy and well.’
She died in her sleep, and that is said to be the best kind of dying. I didn’t think ‘Good to go’ might mean ‘Going and not coming back’. I went with Grandma for her last checkup. I wish I had done better.
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