The Even More Tragic Outcome of Sidewalk Scene

Episode 3

My mother and father never returned to their house in which they had lived for sixty years. My husband and I, anticipating the imminent need for their assisted living, had arranged with one of the few facilities in New Orleans at the time to combine two adjacent one bedroom apartments into one two bedroom apartment, with bedrooms at the two ends and a living room/dining room/kitchen space in the middle. As it developed the facility itself provided no assistance other than a mediocre to terrible restaurant that anyone could frequent, residents or not.

Fortunately, we had prepared for this in advance, by consulting with two social workers who recommended a Black woman, Nancy, and her sister, people who were skilled in providing round the clock care for uncooperative clients. By the time moving day came around, two days after the Sidewalk Scene, Nancy had figured out a way to make herself known to and trusted by both of my parents, who otherwise refused any in-home help except a once per week, long-time, house cleaner. My father had recently been hospitalized due to stomach bleeding from excessive drinking of alcohol, 1/2 fifth of vodka per night, and Nancy had presented herself several times a week at their house, saying she was a home health nurse come to take my father’s blood pressure. By moving day, Nancy was a familiar figure I expect my mother was happy to see in her new, but strange, abode.

Within a couple of weeks in the apartment, my mother took to her bed, forgetting how to walk and talk, and only occasionally vaguely recognizing me and her sister, her consistent visitors. She shriveled up to nothing and died two years later, while my father, who had not once set foot in his wife’s apartment bedroom, stopped eating four months later. Given their long-term tumultuous relationship, I was surprised my father wept at news of my mother’ s death, showed great reluctance to attend her funeral, and desired not to live without her presence in her bed in the next room.

Shortly after both of my parents died, my husband and I decided to begin a new adventure, “Off-script in Ireland.” (Stay Tuned).