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Show 42 She is a tall woman, wearing the clothing of the generation before mine, elegant in her style and even her walk. But what she is saying to me makes no sense: I am staring at her flowing flowered skirt and nylon-enshrouded legs, wondering if she has come to the wrong house. I have been home from the hospital for just a few weeks now and home health aides come three times every day to feed me and my family and to tend to my bodily and household needs. Eileen, my favorite because she smiles even as she dust-mops my floor, is leaning on its handle watching now with a wry smile for my reaction to this unexpected visitor. "Are you sure you're at the right house?" I ask, but I must make my point even clearer and add, "I can't even draw." She is laughing. She does not even seem to notice that I can just barely move my arms or even that I am in a hospital bed in our front room where the couch should be. Someone else has to push the controls to move the head of the bed up or down. I cannot. But still she is treating me as / a colleague having some vast professional secret between us as she spreads out her paints and brushes onto the bed next to me with a contented smile. |