izzy

Dearest one in the Lord,

I am the above named person. I am married to a former minister,
We were married for eleven years without a child . He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days .
When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $5.5 Million ( five hundred ) Deposited in a Bank here .
Recently, my Doctor told me that I would not last for the next Eight months due to cancer problem . The one that disturbs me most is my H.B.P high blood pressure sickness .

Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to individual or any organization that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein .Please contact me for more details

Remain Blessed,

Mrs. Anns

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sarah

something catches on the wind and drags me back
to the halls of the dementia ward where I volunteered as a teenager
massaged sad old hands
sat at the feet of the aged
played on the piano the same five songs, over and over
(demented ears always forget, the delight stays the same)
and I remember
the couple who had met between these sterile white walls
and who would sneak into a room and love each other
the nurses smiled the pitying smiles of the young discussing the old
and said ‘If you walk in on anything, just close the door and leave’
I shuddered then, to think of the dull loose skin
of that elderly embrace.
and I remember
Mary, still tall, in an adult diaper and nothing else
storming the common room, crying
‘I don’t want apples and oranges, I want justice!’
fighting the good fight with a wrecked cheese-holed brain.
and I remember
the woman, sane yet, into whose room I crept every Wednesday
bringing youth and awkward talk to that close-curtained air
I watched as she grew sicker, as the pain grew ever worse
she started giving me her shoes – the same size as mine
her clothes – too big. A piece of jewellery, here and there
donations from the dying to the living
one Wednesday, I didn’t go – some other errand of teenage life detained me
homework, perhaps. A movie. Some trifle.
when I returned the next week, she was gone
even as I asked whether she’d been moved, I knew she was dead
the small strange guilt of the child having broken a promise of hope
the nurses cooed over me, ‘Her family was here’
‘You’d have been in the way.’
the clothes were first to go – always too big and too fusty
the jewellery was lost somewhere, or given away
the shoes were the last to go
they walked a stage or two, strolled through some party or other
then were tossed in an op shop bin, twanging something within me as they went
and I realise
after all
that I can’t even remember her name

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