THE University

    "How far is it from your house to the university?" Nellie asked me one day.
    "Which university?"
    She rolled her eyes at me. "THE university, of course."
    "But what is it called? There are so many in Oklahoma." I hoped to narrow the field a little.
    Nellie looked completely bewildered. "There's more than one? But I'm sure that Karik told me there was only one."
    "No, no. I could name a whole bunch of them right now, just off the top of my head. There's the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma City University, the University of Central Oklahoma, Oklahoma Baptist University, Rose State University, East Central University...." I could have continued, but Nellie's eyes had begun to glaze over.
    "Oh, dear. I don't know. You just go, and turn, and go straight, and keep going, and you're there."
    "Which road do you take?" I still didn't have any idea which university she had in mind.
    "Which road? Umm...I don't know. But it's so beautiful--absolutely lovely. And the buildings are made of red brick, and they're building some new ones...don't you know which one I'm talking about?"
    I sighed. "Oh, Nellie, most of them have red brick buildings and all of them are always building something new. And they're all beautiful in some way or another! If you can't tell me something else, I can't figure out which one you mean."
    "Really? You don't know? Then what am I going to do? How can I find out?" Her voice rose to the desperate squeak I've come to recognize as panic.
    I didn't really think it was that hard. "You can ask Karik what it's called."
    Relief flooded her face. "Oh, that's a good idea. I'll ask him. So can you come to a concert there when I find out which university it is?"
    "When is the concert?"
    She knew the answer to this one. "The 13th of May," she stated proudly. "Can you come?"
    I hated to disappoint her, but even knowing the location wasn't going to help on that day. "I'm sorry, Nellie, but that's Mother's Day. I'll be at my Mama's house."
    If you've read Anne of Green Gables, you'll know what I mean by saying that immediately she was back in the depths of despair. "Oh, no! You can't come? Are you sure that's Mother's Day? Is it always on May 13th?"
    "No, it's always on the third Sunday of May. I'm sorry, but I'm sure."
    Nellie brightened again. "But if it were on a Saturday, you could come. I'll tell Karik, and next year maybe you can come."
    Dear Nellie. We still have to figure out where it is we're going.

Thirty-Nine Years of Mourning

WARNING: This story will not make you laugh.

    Every year, around her birthday, Nellie tells me again about when her mother died. I think she doesn't remember that she's told me before. I knew it was coming when I arrived to find her fretful and depressed; almost as soon as I sat down, she began to talk.
    "It was today that I brought my mother home from the hospital. Thirty-nine years ago today, I brought her home because her cancer had come back and the nurse told me that if I didn't want her body to be given to the students for dissection I should take her home right away. There was nothing else they could do. The cancer was all through her body this time, even though it had gone away for awhile. So I brought her home and tried to make her comfortable. I didn't know what to do. It was horrible, awful. She tried to be brave, and then she cried and shouted and I couldn't figure out what she wanted. She understood then that she was about to die, and she told me that I mustn't cry. She didn't want any tears.
    "So when she died a few days later, I tried not to cry. It would have been easier if I could have just cried, but my mother didn't want me to. What could I do? That was her wish. My neighbors wanted to help me with the funeral meal, but I couldn't do it. On the seventh day, I let them help me spread a table of sweets because it is our tradition and I sat there with the other women, but I couldn't cry. It was my birthday, but now all I can think of every year is when my mama died."
    She was crying now. And what could I say? Thirty-nine years of sadness, bottled up inside--all I could do was hold her hand and rub her back until she calmed a little. Her sweet 91-year-old roommate looked with concern at her tears and asked me what was wrong. "She's remembering when her mother died," I explained softly.
    "I'm so sorry," she whispered back.
    "Will you be alright?" I asked Nellie. She nodded, and I hugged her goodbye reluctantly.
    As I gathered my things, her roommate said quietly, "I'll take care of her."

    More than my lifetime ago, she wasn't allowed to cry...but Nellie still mourns.

There's No Such Thing!

    Nellie has a fascination (you might almost call it an obsession) with the clothes she sees the news anchors wear. There are two pretty young women whose program begins while I'm there, and neary every week she demands how on earth they can always have new dresses. "You see what they're wearing today? I've never seen those dresses before, and they'll never wear them again! How can they afford new clothes every single day?"
    I've tried to suggest that maybe some business sponsors their wardrobe, but that doesn't seem to make sense to her.
    One week, the blonde anchor wore a black and white animal print ruffled top. Nellie kept looking back at her, distracted from our conversation, until finally she couldn't stand it any longer. "What's with her blouse?" she asked. "I don't understand what it's supposed to be. Is it grey?"
    "It's black and white, like a leopard," I explained.
    "Black and white? But leopards are yellow and brown." She was still confused.
    "It's a snow leopard, I think. They're white with black spots."
    "A snow leopard? I've never heard of such a thing."
    "They're kind of like white tigers--have you seen those? Except with spots instead of stripes. You know, the tigers that look like zebras." Perhaps I was not really making sense after all; Nellie seemed even more bewildered.
    "What? I don't understand. Leopards, tigers, lions...big cats? Grrr?"
    I laughed. "Yes, 'grrr.' That's what I'm talking about. They all say 'grrr.' Except the zebras, of course. I don't know if they make any sound."
    She waved her hand impatiently. "Forget about the zebras. We're talking about leopards. But leopards aren't black and white--they're yellow and brown."
    "I promise, there are snow leopards who are black and white. Don't you believe me?"
    Nellie was not convinced. "I've never heard of any such thing in all my life, and I'm eighty-six years old. You're less than half my age. How could you know about something I've never heard about? Where did you see them?"
    I tried to remember. "Oh, on television..."
    "There!" she shook her finger triumphantly. "Just because you saw it on television doesn't mean it's real. There's no such thing."
    I rolled my eyes and recalled another example. "I've seen them at the zoo, too."
    She slumped. "You have?"
    "Yes, so they have to be real."
    The evidence had stacked against her, and she finally gave in. Mostly. "Oh, alright. But what about her blouse? You said they're black and white, but her blouse is grey."
    "Well," I reasoned, "it's really white with black spots but you see it as grey because you can't see it clearly and it all mixes together."
    Nellie frowned. "How do you know that I see it that way?" she demanded suspiciously.
    "Because you read everything like this!" I held my hand about four inches away from my eyes. "Maybe if you moved really, really close to the television, you could see the spots."
    She brightened. "Maybe so! I'll try it." And she moved her chair near enough to peer closely at the new anchor's blouse. "You're right! It's white with black spots!"

Oops.

    Lindor truffles are among Nellie's favorite candies. Of course, she also likes Swedish fish and cordial cherries and...well, pretty much anything. But she really loves Lindor chocolates, so when she asked me if I could buy her some I wasn't surprised.
    "Are they for anything special?" I wondered.
    "Oh, they're for a lady who works here. Her birthday is coming soon, and she's such a nice lady that I want to give her a present. She's seventy or something, and such a nice person.
    I was happy to comply. "Sure I will. Do you want a card too?"
    "Yes, a pretty birthday card--you can write something nice in it like 'I congratulate you on your birthday and wish you health and happiness'--you know what to write."
    "Alright. What's her name?"
    Nellie hesitated. "I think it's Samira."
    I laughed. "Are you sure?"
    "You know me too well, don't you?"
    "Yes," I answered, "I can remember a time not very long ago when you couldn't remember my name!"
    She chuckled sheepishly. "But I know your name now! It's...um...don't tell me...."
    I shook my head in amazement.
    "Is it...Jennifer?"

Don't Talk to Strangers

     I was sick again on a Tuesday, and called Nellie to let her know why I couldn't come; otherwise, she would assume that I were dead or at least in the hospital.
    "Hello, Nellie?" There was silence on the other end. "Nellie, are you there? It's Jessica."
    Finally she spoke. "What? I don't understand."
    "It's Jessica," I spoke a little louder. "You know, your friend, the one you call your granddaughter? The girl who comes to see you every Tuesday?"
    Another long silence. Nellie evidently wasn't catching on. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said, her voice hard and flat--and she hung up!
     I looked in disbelief at the "call ended" message on my phone, took a deep breath, and tried again.    "Nellie, it's Jessica," I began quickly. "You know me. I come every Tuesday and we have tea."
    There was a pause, and then she sighed. "Fine," she gave in with obvious incredulity. "What do you want?"
    Exasperated and now exhausted (because I was, after all, feeling fairly awful), I hurried to finish. "I just called to tell you that I can't come today because I'm sick."
    Nellie's voice changed completely as she recognized at last who I was. "Ohhh, Jessica! Now I understand! You're sick? Do you need to go to the doctor? What about the apples? Can your husband come and get the apples? Why do you get sick so much?"
    This was the Nellie I knew.

Golden Fingers

    Nellie was waiting for me at the nursing home entrance. Her first words revealed that she was in much turmoil of spirit: "The little boy fell on his head," she said, without preamble, "and broke into lots of pieces!" I knew exactly which "little boy" she meant; she has two porcelain dolls, about six or eight inches tall, dressed in Russian-style clothes, who live on her shelves and sometimes tumble off for no good reason at all. I had glued his feet (or maybe it was his brother's) a time or two before.
    "Don't worry," I tried to comfort her. "Maybe I can fix him. Let's go see."
    "But there are so many pieces!" She would not be comforted, so we wheeled down the hall and started tea while I inspected the fragments she had gathered. Sure enough, there were quite a few pieces...and try as I could, they didn't quite make a whole head. One was unmistakably missing. I crawled around the floor, peering under the bed and into corners hoping that the last bit would magically appear...but it was nowhere to be found.
     I showed Nellie the triangular hole right in the center of his forehead and told her that I while could glue the rest, there would still be that gap. She brightened up immediately and dismissed the gaping wound as a non-issue: "You have golden fingers," she assured me. "You can do something. Maybe his hair will cover it!"
    "Alright," I agreed, somewhat doubtfully, to make the attempt. "So what is his name? If we're going to fix him, he needs a name."
    "Ummm..." Nellie looked blank.
    "Do you want him to have a Russian name, or an American name?"
    "Well...I'm not sure. Maybe an American name. What's your husband's name, again?" I reminded her, and she seized upon it happily. "His name is Jerry!" she declared.
    There was no way his hair, even bowl-cut as it was, could cover that hole in any manner that looked natural--but with such trust, I had to try. Carefully wrapped in a paper towel, the little boy traveled with me to work, where we have many tubes of superglue; Jerry's story so affected my coworkers that he quickly became a community project. I carefully glued all the pieces until all that remained was that triangle between his eyes.... "Maybe," my boss suggested, "you could use a bit of paper."
    So I took him back home and fashioned a tiny papier-mache patch which, when dabbed with foundation, actually blended pretty well. When Tuesday came again, I showed the finished product to the ladies at work and continued on with a tiny bit of trepidation to Nellie. I wasn't so concerned that she wouldn't be pleased, but that she might refuse to believe that I had used paper to patch him!
    I shouldn't have worried. Nellie was so delighted at Jerry's return that she only shook her head in wonder at how little the hole showed. Smiling happily, she kissed the doll on the head and directed me to put him back on his shelf next to the other little boy. As I gently set him in his place, I asked her if she had a name for the second figure. She shrugged her shoulders. "You name him," she commanded.
    "How about 'Tom'?" I suggested.
    "Thom ee Djeri," she tried out the sounds of the words, nodding with approval. "Very good."
    And so Tom and Jerry live high on Nellie's shelf, where (hopefully) they will stay safely without any more falls.

Happy Birthday

    My phone rang, and I sighed when I saw Nellie's name. Usually when she calls it's for some emergency, such as running out of face cream or being afraid that I'll cut myself on a hypothetical mirror in my purse. Because of this, I always answer her calls with a little trepidation...but I answer, because otherwise she'll work herself into a tizzy and assume that I'm dead.
    There was a sort of confused silence on the other end of the line. I tried again. "Hello, Nellie? Are you there? How are you?"
    Finally she responded. "Oh, yes, ummmm..." I waited, wondering if she had forgotten what she wanted to say.
    "Yes? What do you need?" I prompted.
    And she began to speak, slowly, as if she were reading or reciting. "My dear Jessica, I want to congratulate you on your birthday! I wish you love and health and success and all the best."
    If smiles were audible, she could have heard mine through the phone. It was a traditional Russian birthday wish, such as I hadn't heard in...well, far too many years. "Oh, thank you!" I told her.
    I could almost hear her own smile in reply. "Did I say it right?" she asked happily. Oh, yes. Perfectly right.