Josephine the Singer

She introduces herself to me as Josephine the Singer.

I meet her in an Arizona nursing home as she wheels herself down the corridor, wearing a cobalt blue dress with white flower print, and singing. Always singing. This is the only way she can live. Without a song, she is just Josephine. Just an old person in a nursing home.

We sit by a window in the starched hallway, and she warbles a solo of toothless songs she has written since she came here 5 years ago. Then, she still had some family. Now she is the last, and no one visits. So she sings. Most of her lyrics are about birds and flying, I think, though the words are tremulous and thin.

Josephine invites me to her dim room. On our way she bumps into a wheelchair and tears her skin like tissue paper.

Crayon drawings decorate the walls of Josephine’s room, but they are not from grandchildren. She started coloring when she moved to the nursing home. She draws a crayon picture on one side and writes a one-page story on the other. With crayons and paper, she is an artist; she is a storyteller.

What are her tales about, I wonder? She reads them to me, but I cannot understand. Are they about Josephine

the wife, the friend, the mother

the beautiful woman who loves, who is loved

who lives in a world where colors weigh more than crayon names: granny smith apple, periwinkle, eggplant, dandelion, cotton candy, sunset, sky…

Josephine and I sit by the window looking out at a courtyard with a tree, and she sings about the time she saw a big, beautiful blackbird perch on a branch in that tree, the bird so heavy the limb bowed under its weight. Then it flew away.

I sing a duet with Josephine, “Amazing Grace”. Her request, though she is quite emphatic about being an atheist. Another resident pauses, leans on a walker to listen to us. How sweet the sound. How determined this woman’s spirit, how powerful her joy though she knows her time will soon end, with few to care about the fleeting, real, lovely moment that was her life.

Josephine says that when she dies, she wants anyone to come into her room here and take anything they want. And – though mind you, she doesn’t believe in God – she wants them to gather in her room and sing “Amazing Grace” together.

Always singing… Of course she wants them to sing.

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When we’ve been there ten thousand years

Bright shining as the sun

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

Than when we first begun…

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12

Timmy: a short creative nonfiction piece

Adults in folding chairs make a ragged ring around the camp fire, laughing at each other across the circle about adult things. It is late afternoon, and to Timmy they have done nothing all day but sit here or take turns prowling around the food table, picking at the Doritos and vanilla crème sandwich cookies. Every few minutes someone hefts to their feet with a good-natured groan and staggers from the group, returning with a handful of pretzels or a pop and settling into their sagging chair again with a sigh. Right now they are playing an adult game which is really funny to them. A man and a woman take turns reading from pink and blue cards and the men complain loudly when they can’t answer a question, while the ladies glance at each other and smile and titter.

Timmy’s little sisters, his cousins and the other children at the campout squeal and giggle in the background. A big kid is letting them play in his Jeep. A pale boy sits in the front seat, yanking the wheel and yelling “VROOM! RRRRRRRR!!!!VRRRROOOOOOOM!!!” as the other kids scramble over the car like ants over a big dropped crumb. Timmy does not play – he needs to collect more sticks for the fire.

“All right, y’all, it’s three to six now,” a lady says. Timmy thinks her voice sounds different.

“Only because we let you have that last one!” a man says. Loud laughter and high-pitched yelling from the women, deep protests from the men.

“Here’s your next question – what finger do you use when applying eye cream?” The lady pauses and looks around. “What finger…do you use…when applying…eye cream?” she says again, slower.

Timmy hears a man’s voice say, “What?! Now, come on! No multiple choice?”

“Aw, no fair – this is rigged,” another man says. The circle around the fire erupts laughing again.

The pale boy yells, “WATCH OUT GUYS! HEY – OH NO! THE POLICE ARE CHASING US!” His sisters giggle and cling to each other in the back of the Jeep.

Timmy hears the adults from the woods where he looks for sticks, hears the kids screaming and beeping the horn. He wants to laugh and play, too. He could be the policeman. He would make a good policeman because a real one has been to his house, he knows how they talk and stuff. But he sees the ashy wisp of smoke rising from the middle of the circle of adults, reminding him that he has a job to do. Timmy thinks that if his dad was here, they would hunt sticks together. Good sticks are hard to find, but his dad would show him the right places to look, he is sure.

Timmy has a picture in his mind of a day when his dad yanked the phone out of the wall. His mom was screaming, and his sisters were crying. The police came to the house and took his dad away. He remembers the policeman’s shiny badge and the hole in the wall and the tangled colored cords sticking out…

“AaaaawoooooOOOOOOOOooooooooo!!!” The sound of a pretend police siren wails from the Jeep. Timmy stoops close to the ground. He finds pine cones and cigarette butts. He finds a discarded ponytail holder from a previous camper. Here’s a stick. It’s dry, so it will burn well, he thinks. He hears the adults laughing some more. They’re letting the fire go out. They aren’t paying any attention.

He walks back to the fire and squeezes between two lawn chairs. A woman looks over at him for a moment: What is he doing? Why isn’t he playing?

Timmy feels brave. The fire is hot, but he is venturing close to it like he has seen the big men do when they put logs on. He looks for the best place to put his firewood, then squats in the dirt and watches as it burns. The yellow flame licks his little sticks and makes him feel proud. Timmy looks up at a girl with red spots on her face and a baseball cap. He wants her to be proud of his sticks, too. “See that stick right there?” He points. “That’s my stick. I put that there.”

“Nice, Timmy,” the girl says without looking. More screams come from the Jeep. The big kid is shaking it and the children are tumbling around inside. The pale boy yells, “OH NO!!!” Timmy just hooks his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans like he has seen big men do and walks past them. The pale boy doesn’t know how to find good sticks. This time Timmy needs to find a big stick that will not burn quickly.