What She Thought of When She Thought About Going Home

It might have the anniversary of my grandmother's birthday the other day; we are not quite sure what year she born. She spent the last ten years of her life in a nursing home.

When she thought about going home, Philly imagined walking up the back steps to the upstairs apartment with no pain in her knees. She carried a paper bag of groceries from the Start Market and entered a clean, if cluttered, kitchen. If she was tired, she could sit at the kitchen table and have a Kent, sip sweet coffee, soften a hard biscotti in the milk. The windows would be open allowing an autumn breeze to flow through the entire house; it was just the right temperature for making sauce. Not like the sweltering days of August when just turning on the front burner made her sweat.

The wist party at Knights of Columbus Hall would be starting up after the summer break. Philly, Carmela, and Nancy would go to Catholic Daughters meetings, once a month, to plan for the Halloween party, the holiday bazaar, the cape cod retreat. She would dress up as a Spanish dancer this year, long black veil made of lace pinned to her teased blond hair.

At home, she wouldn’t have to share a bedroom with a woman who groaned throughout the night or the one who snored whenever her chin dipped into her caved-in chest. She could move, effortlessly, in and out of the tub, up and down the steps, and look forward to preparing the salted cod for Christmas Eve dinner.