Won Best of Show in competition on the theme of Chip off the Old Block!
To most, he was just an old man. An old man whose stubbled chin was flecked with dabs of drool. Disheveled hair gave him the look of an old bum, one of Steinbeck’s Okies. God, he would have loved that, I thought.
The ward had passed from its early morning rush to the mid-morning stupor. I was in the straight-backed chair, leaning towards him, elbows resting on my knees. I remembered our last time together, before the stroke took him away. He was whispering the Tijuana strip joint story into my left ear, my prim aunt sitting on my right. I can still hear his chuckle when he finished. How he loved a good story.
Nobody knew how much he comprehended of the world around him. His was not the blank look of some of the others in the ward. But neither did he respond, not to questions, comments, or visitors. He just sat in his bed, a furrow between his bushy eyebrows, looking like he didn’t understand where he was or how get had gotten there.
My day to visit was Tuesday. I spent time in-between trying to remember his stories. About the swimming hole. The two-story outhouse. The baseball games he took my aunt to when they were courting, and how impressed he had been by her enthusiasm for the game. I used the stories to reach through the confusion and find my favorite uncle. Just for one second. Just so I could say good-bye.
For two months, I had regaled him with the old stuff. Today, I was out of stories. I looked at this face that had my nose, my hair line. This man with whom I shared a middle name and the love of a woman named Francis, his baby sister, my mother.
“Uncle,” I murmured. “I miss your stories. I tell them to little Frannie now. At night, just as she’s falling asleep. She loves the one about Mrs. Pulaski’s cat and the firecrackers. She doesn’t believe the one about the two-story outhouse, but I told her that even though you told tall tales, you never, ever lied. Leslie’s afraid that Frannie has the ‘Murphy story gene.’ Frannie told one at the dinner table the other night, about how she had spent all afternoon playing with the little people that just moved into the neighborhood. It was quite the story, with the little boy playing a knight and the little girl playing the good princess and Frannie playing the evil witch. Leslie thought she was lying, and was ready to send her away from the table, until I told her our new neighbor’s last name was ‘Little’. So Frannie had told the story correctly … she had played with the ‘Little’ people all afternoon.”
A soft hand touched my shoulder. The nurses had to get everyone ready for lunch. As I kissed my uncle’s cheek, I felt the tear. First one, then more, trailing down his face and neck. He turned his head slightly and looked at me. Just for a moment. Then he turned back to his private world.
The sun blinded me as I stepped out of the nursing home. I shaded my eyes as I walked down the steps and toward the garden. Leslie was sitting on her usual bench, concentrating on her needlepoint, eyes scrunched so she saw only the fabric directly in front of her.
Frannie was prancing in the sunlight, pigtails flying as she twirled and twirled, face open to the sky. She stopped, and with a grin as wide as her arms, raced toward me. I tossed her up high, my heart following. “Daddy, Daddy,” she whispered. “Let me tell you a story.”
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