This is the story of 80 year old stroke victim Mary who actually escaped from the local nursing home by gunning her power chair out through the automatic doors of the building. She said she moved so quickly they couldn’t even catch her. Somehow, I enjoy the thought of an elderly escapee. She is now living in a nearby condo and says she is never going back! Her aversion to this nursing home might have had something to do with her roommate dying a slow and gasping death in the space nearby. I am guessing this lady was a “Do Not Resuscitate” person and she was gasping for breath all night long. Mary said that the nurse kept putting “hurry up and die” drops in her mouth. I am sure this was terrifying for Mary who has no intention of dying just yet, even though she is paralyzed on one side from having had four strokes. She told her son, “If I have to die, just let me die here at home.” And so that is where she resides–in a one-bedroom condo that will not, irritatingly enough, fit all of her furniture. Her kids sold most of her dear, dear possessions for which she remains forever and totally pissed off. Mary is still smoking cigarettes, as she has all of her life–at least since WWII.
Mary’s husband was a military man, and due to his “playing around” was divorced by Mary, a devout Irish Catholic, many years ago, and she raised her three sons alone without his help. When his girlfriends’ letters started arriving at her home, she filed for divorce and used the letters as evidence. She was hired by the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C. and worked with two of the men who invented the atomic bomb–one who was a legless Hungarian refugee. She now receives a fairly decent pension from the government.
Mary is waiting for warmer weather so she can take a “stroll” downtown in her power chair and see the physical therapist who will help her to, once again, begin to walk. I’ll say one thing for certain about Mary–she is determined. And even though she is contrary and willful, this is what is keeping her alive.
