Thursday, November 26, 2009

up on the roof part two

I'm laughing because I meant to write about one memory and it came out totally different hence the title "Up on the roof" made no sense! The moral is embrace your dementia-don't be afraid of it!
Anyway, eventually my mother through sheer force of will over powered all obstacles and established a successful home practice. My grandmother moved next door to her other house and lived in the second floor apartment. The houses were close together separated by a driveway. I think mother and daughter liked that because they could spy on one another. A patient comes into the office and calmly says to Dr. Mary, "Hey isn't that your eighty year old mother up on the roof (now it makes sense) washing the windows?" I really would have liked to have been there for this incident because I think I would have been filled with admiration for my grandmother's ability to maintain her balance on a sloping roof because my mother opened her office window screaming "what the hell are you doing!!! get off that roof now!!!" A lesser mortal would have lost their balance and plummeted to their death, but Ma (what we all called her) told her to mind her own business and finished the job. Ma would also walk over, if she had a pressing question on her mind, to my mother's office and walk right in her adjusting room where Dr. Mary would be working on someone dressed in one of those gowns where your backside was exposed. "Mary, you work on customer? get me some milk when you go shopping." My mother would go nuts, "How many times do I have to tell you to knock! I'm working on naked people here!" To which Ma would say, "I seen all dat lots before." Escorting Ma out the door she would yell "And don't say customer! they are patients."

1 comment:

  1. Ronnie -- what a great blog! christine and i are over here in Israel laughing. Dr. Mary would be proud -- and laughing too -- and yelling a bit along the way.

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