Pennies from Heaven, Jean & Jaki Jean

November 4, 2012

Day 26 of life in the hospital with Jean.

Today’s Palabra del diá  is Siesta.   In honor of the fall time change.  Yesterday’s Word of the Day was Splendiferous.

Splendiferous – a magnificent word.  Its syllables roll off the tongue, filled with the expression of something glorious.  With the promise that the joyous syllables will result in a magnificent experience.  A good day. 

Yesterday was not splendiferous. 

 

Kinder, gentler Jaki Jean made few appearances yesterday.  Complacency meandered throughout the second floor & Jean waited an hour for a response to a request for a change. 

As my true nature emerged, the self that convinces people I am a natural red head with the fire attributed to the admoni, my perception of complacency intensified.  I escalated our request, I called our case manager, I asked for a supervisor, for the supervisor’s cell phone.  I asked for the nurse, only to be told she was on her lunch break.

Another half hour passed.

My friend the elderly gentleman in socks wandered the halls of our wing in only one robe instead of his usual garb of one robe open to the back & one robe open to the front.  Not a palatable sight.  

I, too, wandered the halls, gazed out the windows at the roof.  My anger, frustration, disbelief & dismay palatable to all who watched my movement.

Are you having fun yet?  A patient from our wing whispered from his wheelchair as he rolled past me to his room.

Something is not going your way.  The security guard making his rounds commented.

Indeed.

When our Nurse Erica emerged from her lunch break, she listened patiently as I recited my writ of frustration.  Told that she was needed to change Jean’s dressing on her wound, she went to the room & took over the aborted process of cleaning Jean.

I continued to pace, my failed attempts to resurrect the all too often elusive kinder & gentler Jaki Jean indicative of my failure to write a splendiferous text for the day.

There was evening & there was morning & then there was Sunday, the 26^th day.

Sundays are one of my favorite days here in our wing on the second floor.  Breakfast includes oatmeal & French toast with our eggs.  Lunch every other week is turkey & cornbread dressing with a side of seasoned green beans & for dessert, pumpkin pie.  Patients have a steady stream of visitors & family in attendance.  

But not Jackson D. Joglekar, my friend the gentlemen in socks who sometimes has wings.

No wings for Jackson today.  No exhibition costumes open in the back.

On this Sunday, the 26^th day of our soiree, Jackson wove a blanket into a robe, draped around his shoulders, carefully covering his gaping hospital gown.  His efforts to wander his kingdom, to position himself, were constantly curtailed by the second floor staff.

The text he wrote for himself, neither read nor understood by those reading him.

It was a good day for Jean.  

She asked me to change the station from Fox News to Meet the Press.  When I explained that Meet the Press was not on for another twenty minutes, she replied I don’t want to listen to Fox News for another twenty minutes.

A good day, indeed.

Jean & I watched the Texans beat the Buffalo Bills & I found myself entirely too engrossed in the game.  I do not need another passion, another obsession. 

At least not until I learn to knit.

Early other morning, I found eleven pennies loosely piled at the base of the tier holding the sugar, Sweet-n-Low, lemon & powdered coffee creamer in the cafeteria downstairs.

Abandoned or forgotten, lying in wait to be retrieved or rescued & stuffed in a pocket or coin purse.

I thought to myself Self, someone might come back for them.  Someone might need them. Someone might need exactly eleven pennies.

“Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven.”

So I lined them up, six pennies on one row, five pennies in a row above the six.  In clear view in front of the condiment tier.

Subsequent trips to the cafeteria find the pennies still lined up.  I find another penny underneath the tier and add it to the row of five.

Twelve pennies from heaven, waiting to be claimed & put to use.

I decide to add a penny to the rows each time I return to the cafeteria for ice.  To see how many pennies were needed for someone to confiscate them.

Thirteen.

I think about a friend who saved every “found” penny she picked up in a jar.  Sometimes she wore a found penny in her shoe for good luck.

And I think about a morning long ago, watching a woman in my neighborhood grocery store parking lot pick up a penny & exclaim with delight Heads !

I smiled & remarked Find a penny pick it up / All day long you’ll have good luck.

She thought for a moment, walked over, handed it to me & said --

For good luck.

In my benefactor’s honor, I decide to leave a penny on the cafeteria condiment table.  Not to see how long it takes for someone to pick it up, or how many pennies it takes to tempt my fellow life pilgrims.

But to spread good karma.

“Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven.”