How To Celebrate An Old Rose

The summer Rose turned 220 years old her descendants yearned to throw her a big party, despite her general incomprehension and short daily wake period. Their conundrum was how to respectfully celebrate a lady who mostly behaved like the wood grain of an old oak tree. Even the scientists who came from various universities to study her noted that, while the inside of Rose was a functioning marvel, the outside was as silent as it was still. This was how it was with the world’s sole example of someone who’d lived so bafflingly far past the life expectancy.

Rose had become a local symbol of pride because she’d long brought worldwide attention to her otherwise modest town in northeast Pennsylvania. Plus, Rose was a hoot in those rare moments when she was responsive. Folks loved her the same as, or more than, the Steelers, the Eagles, the Pirates, or the Phillies. She was a one-person fan-generating hometown subject of love. Images of her goofy smile with that crooked index finger pointing mysteriously to the sky were now a famous meme.

A Passing Down

From around the time Rose turned 95, she began to be passed down in the family as she consistently outlived each new generation in front of her. Her family lived with two realities: eventually you might inherit the bicentenarian, but later you might also receive her loving nod as you passed on before her. This was life as a relative of Rose.

The summer of her 220th birthday saw her settled comfortably into the home of her great-great-great-great-grandson, Darren and his wife, Camille. Darren had just turned seventy, so he knew it was certainly possible Rose might outlive him one day, yet his impulse was to care for her as if she were the one to exit first. She was frailer than was imaginable, so she required constant monitoring.

Camille took charge of Rose’s meals and laundry, while Darren oversaw the wheelchair/bed exchange—getting her dressed, and in and out of bed. He also kept Rose close at hand on the baby monitor that sat on his desk while he continued to mentor the company he’d handed off to his kids. If Camille went out to run errands or meet with friends, Darren was able to keep a constant eye on Rose, and this is how Darren got to know his great grandmother by chance.

At first, it was small movements that caught his attention. Rose mostly sat in her wheelchair tilted to the side, mouth slightly agape, dozing on and off through the day. When she woke from a sleep spell, she’d make a little jerk of her head to right herself in the chair. Darren would watch when this happened to make sure nothing worrisome was coming right after. But nothing ever came.

The Photo

Instead, Rose would take a long breath and then reach her bony arm to the table next to her to move the framed picture of her five elderly children just an inch or two along the tabletop. It was a digitized copy of the fragile original which sat in the county's archive. Rose would stare at it with her meager eyes for several minutes. For as long as she would stare, Darren would watch. She never did this when others were around. Darren could only catch sight of this ritual on the baby monitor.

Then he'd see her face shift as if a beautifully scented flower had been lifted to her nose. He’d see her whisper something inaudible to the photo, and then laugh—or her version of a laugh—wobbling her head briefly. Invariably this would make Darren break into a laugh. How could this woman still be enjoying some private source of humor after two hundred years? It made him wonder about the last things people will hold on to. Humor? Love? Hope? Fear? What would be the last that he’d let go?

Taking Care

One day, his granddaughter Maggie came for a weekend visit and sat with Rose to feed her butterscotch pudding, Rose’s favorite. He watched this gently transpire from the baby monitor and felt an easiness to witness the caring. Slowly his granddaughter would tip a spoon of pudding into Rose’s mouth, and gradually Rose would consume it with obvious pleasure. But then, by accident Maggie dropped a blob of pudding onto Rose’s lap. Rose flinched with a look of surprise, but the pudding was quickly removed, and the feeding resumed.

Later, when his granddaughter left the house with his wife, Darren watched as Rose kept an eye on her TV show but kept fussing with the pudding spot. Her fine motor skills had degraded to the point that you’d expect, so her fussing was a series of frustrated hand motions near her lap. And yet, Rose was still determined to be the dapper lady she’d been known for most of her life.

Darren finished his phone meeting, walked over to Rose’s bedroom to grab a new shirt from the closet, then went to the TV room to fix his grandmother’s angst. She looked up at him with appreciation, as a creature will when taken care of in its most vulnerable state. Rose beamed gratitude straight from her eyes to his as he switched out shirts. She wanted him to know how she felt, and in some small way he did.

Then he sat down with her for a bit. He talked to her and asked questions. Eventually, he elicited a short conversation from her.

“Rose, where is Grandpa today?” He was referring to her husband who’d died the year Edgar Allan Poe published “The Raven”.

“There,” she answered, nudging toward the photo of her aged kids. “He takes care of the kids.”

“What are you doing here then?” he asked.

“I take care of YOU.” Then she cracked her goofy smile, pointed her finger to the sky, and Darren chuckled.

Then he took his grandmother’s hands into his and brushed her straggly bangs to the side of her forehead. “Grandma, you’re doing a very good job taking care of us. We are happy because of you.” He stroked her hands, their veins running on top of a set of bones thinly covered with skin. He bent down and kissed her wrist and gave her a wink.

“I’ve got to go back to work. Do you want to come and sit in my office?”

She shook her head. “I wait for the girls,” she answered, pointing to the door.

“Okay. Do you want to watch The Golden Girls again?”

Rose nodded and settled back in her chair. She was all set now with a duty to perform, a bit of entertainment, and a clean shirt.

When Darren got back to his work, he peeked at Rose on the baby cam. She was smiling at the TV, but half watching the front door too.

A Celebration

Eventually, Camille asked Darren what they should do about the birthday party. People kept calling to ask if they could come by to wish Rose another twenty years or fifty or some crazy amount of time—but what was crazy at this point? They decided a party would be fine, but to keep it small. If friends wanted to deliver wishes in person, they could come for a quick visit to say hello in shifts over days. Rose had a small window of opportunity each day for this. The birthday could extend itself the way Rose miraculously had.

The birthday week finally arrived. Preparations were in place for the wave of well-wishers intending to stop by. As the visitors arrived, there was plenty of hugging, tears, and laughter. So much commotion at times that it caused Rose to tuck her back tighter against her wheelchair. When people moved into the adjoining room to leave her with some quiet space, she’d push a morsel of her birthday cupcake to the floor for the cat, as if the cat was a pigeon—and the cat flew to it much like one. This made Rose chuckle, and this was remarkable, considering.

Everything about Rose was remarkable. After an overly long life, she still had the electricity to care about cleanliness and jokes, about the living and the dead, about the cat. If none of this were true, she’d still be as famous as ever anyway.

But Darren, like all his relatives, desperately hoped he had not inherited whatever genes or luck his ancient great grandmother had. Her excessive stay on Earth had an ironic influence on her kin. None of them wanted her fate. Instead, they were inspired to live their lives with as much attention as they could muster, not taking things for granted as best they could, taking note of the blessings that were in the passing hours—all of this because they wanted life to be short, relatively. Watching someone deal with having been served too much time taught them how to enjoy their reasonable quantity instead.

Nevertheless, Rose’s birthday was always a special occasion. It brought the community together for a celebration of not only a single person, but of life itself. Everyone would be speechless to describe what they felt on that day. Were they grateful for Rose? Dumbfounded? Admiring? They felt all of it. They kissed the top of her head and gently stroked her shoulders. They celebrated her by admiring her lessons.

And Rose? She sat there like every year and played the proper birthday girl, accepting graciously, patiently waiting for it to be over so she could once again watch The Golden Girls in peace and push the celebration cupcake to the cat. Afterall, life is short.

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But, friends, there’s another birthday. This little blog is one year old. It’s hard to believe. “One post per week,” I said to myself when I started. “Let’s see if anyone reads it.”

Well, you have, and I thank you for that, and for your comments and support.

I want to hug you.