I'll never forget the first time I laid eyes on her ...
I was smitten immediately when I saw this shapely, well-endowed female sitting in her electric scooter at the card table. She was playing Skp-Bo with several friends and laughing uproariously. It was love at first giggle.
Curly silvery-blue hair that fell to just above her shoulders. Sparkling dark eyes that snapped with life and emotion. Tiny little hands with well-manicured pink nails and the cutest little feet clad in pink-and-red house slippers. Wearing a matching gown. Sitting there in her scooter, she looked like a queen, a prima donna.
She was beautiful.
A few days later, I saw this woman again, this time in the lunch room. She was with the same group of lady friends, only this time she had a purple pants suit on. I couldn't take my eyes off of her ...
About a week after I first saw the woman, I saw one of her friends walking by. I snagged her with the end of my cane, and I asked her what the woman's name was. I told her I meant her friend, the one who'd been wearing the red gown the first time, and then the purple pants suit the next time.
The woman told me that her friend's name was Elsie. She was in the nursing home because she had no family, and she was unable to care for herself. She'd been in the hospital, and the hospital had her placed in the home. Elsie was in her seventies and had numerous health problems, among them being kidney problems, heart and lung issues, high blood pressure, diabetes, and bad circulation. She'd been in the nursing home for over four years by the time I first saw her, she told me.
"Well, I'd love to get to know her", I told the woman. "Good luck", she told me. "She likes to play hard-to-get."
When I finally worked up the courage, I hobbled to Elsie's room on my canes. I knocked on the door; she let me in. Elsie was lying on her bed, taking oxygen through a tube in her nose; it was attached to a tank. She smiled weakly when she saw me. "Not having a good day today", she told me. "Sorry."
"That's okay, Elsie", I told her. "By the way, I've been watching you, and I think you are a fine-lookin' figure of a woman. My name's Harry, by the way. Harry Singleton."
"Nice to meet you". A pregnant pause of silence before she continued: "Please forgive me for not being the life of the party. Breathing and heart giving me fits today. So sorry."
"Oh, that's okay", I told Elsie. "Your friend, Corander, told me your name when I'd asked her about you. I think I am falling in love with you."
Elsie gave a weak little laugh. "You've gotta be kiddin'!" she wheezed.
"Nope. Serious as a heart attack. I'm smitten. You are about the prettiest thing this side of Texas ... who couldn't fall in love with you?" I said.
So that was how it started. We've since gotten to know each other quite well: our quirks, our habits, our interests (as well as our dislikes), our dreams/desires, our families (turns out she had nobody). It was the start of a beautiful friendship that's since started to blossom into something more.
How long we will have together is anybody's guess, but as long as Elsie lives, I shall do everything in my power to make her happy. Suddenly I feel like a young man of twenty all over again. I'm wildly, happily, deliriously in love again ... and damn, bujt does it ever feel GOOD!! :)
