Hello from Beyond the Grave

This morning my dead sister said hello. With terrible allergies in this month of May, I was rifling through catch-all baskets last night looking for my oximeter that I’d bought during the pandemic, the one that shows oxygen saturation. I thought I might have walking pneumonia. Then I took Pepto Bismol and my throat was no longer full of gunk. It was my stomach after all.

This morning, I was consolidating the many catch-all baskets into one – Bed, Bath, and Beyond coupons? Don’t need those anymore. Old store coupons? Gone. Then I picked up a small piece of paper form the Social Security Administration. It was to indicate my place in line to speak with someone about taking over my sister’s account and having her payment mailed to me in California. We were in Iowa, me , Sis, and Mom. I had to hold up my right hand and swear that I would use Sis’s money only for her care and save the rest. I said that I would. It was from 2017.

When I saw the small paper this morning and realized it was a memento from that horrible day, I couldn’t believe it. It’s from seven years ago, and it’s in my kitchen? How have I never seen it before? Heck, I remodeled my kitchen in 2019, taking out a wall and adding an island. There’s no way the paper survived the demolition of my old kitchen.

So I said hi to my dead sis. How else to explain it? She was letting me know she’s still around, even though her cremains are in the ground in Iowa.

The night before that appointment, I had just arrived In Iowa and was staying in the guest room of the assisted living place on the 3^rd and top floor. I had a terrible night’s sleep because A) the AC unit for the whole flipping place was on the flat roof above my room, and B) someone did laundry across the hall at 4:30 a.m. I finally got up and went down to my mom and sister’s unit and crashed on the couch. Sis was an early bird and got up at 6:30, flipping on the TV. I was exhausted from no sleep. To make matters worse, I couldn’t find my $400 mouthguard. I looked through the trash in the trash room, touching every disgusting thing in my mom’s trash bag.

Mom told me it was gone for good and to get over it.

“It’s not gone! It has to be somewhere!” I shouted.

I went back to my guest room and looked inside my tennis shoe. Don’t ask me why, but I had a flash of recognition that in my sleepy and stressed mind, I had popped it into my shoe.

It was there! I was relieved. I came back to Mom and Sis’s unit to tell them I’d found it. Mom had meanwhile called Walgreen’s to get an over-the-counter replacement mouthguard, the kind that sold for $20.

Then I crashed on Sis’s bed, waiting until we had to leave for the Social Security office. Mom came into the room and asked me what I was doing, and I was curt with her and might’ve used a swear word, not at her, but about my horrible night of non-sleep. “But we have to have lunch!” she said.

“Not me,” I said. “Go without me.”

“You have to eat,” she said.

“Leave me alone,” I said.

Mom and Sis went down for an early lunch and I stayed sprawled across Sis’ bed, which would soon be empty when I took her back to California with me. When they returned from the cafeteria, I popped a granola bar into my purse and we headed out.

That little piece of paper brought back those memories, just like that.