I was dispatched on an urgent, critical mission to check on a woman in the hospital. It was my aunt. She had landed herself there after suffering a mini-stroke at home in Tampa. A mini-stroke is the Good Lord’s way of saying, “Listen, I’ll let you off the hook this time, but maybe slow down on the bacon?”
Or at least that’s what the doctor seemed to be implying.
I drove down to Tampa to see what I could do for her. She lives alone with two Pomeranians, who would steal the car if no one was keeping tabs on the keys.
When I found she was doing well, suffered no permanent damage and was expected to make a full recovery in a matter of weeks, if not days, relief switched to figuring out how to get her affairs in order.
So, I was dispatched on an urgent, critical mission to her condo … for her address book.
Address book?!?
A worn, bulging, tattered and torn, frayed and faded jumble of pages all hanging on for dear life to a faux red leather binding that seemed to have no interest in performing its duty.
The alphabetical letters were all worn off and it resembled something an archaeologist would have used to scribble notes … in 1910!
“Where’s the rubber band that keeps it all together?” she asked, surprised. Maybe even implying that I had stolen it and should give it back. Was it vintage?!?
“I’ll keep a lookout for it, but you might need a new one,” I said.
For the first time, she looked distraught and forlorn: “New rubber band? No, this is not good at all!”
I thumbed through the book as little strips of paper fell out and pages came loose. I noticed names who had clearly died in the Great Depression and were no longer receiving phone calls.
“You know, I’ve seen your finances,” I told her. “I’m pretty sure you could buy yourself a new address book.”
She looked at me. It was the kind of look when someone really wants to use a bad curse word, but is worried the nurse might hear.
Instead, she told me: “We have to call my book club.”
Because that’s the first phone call you make after having a stroke!
She needed to let them know she wouldn’t be there and that someone needed to pickup Angela.
“Who’s Angela?” I said.
“From the book club. The woman who bakes the cookies,” as if I should know this. “Someone will need to give her a ride since I can’t.”
Did she mean me?
So, into the address book I went digging. Searching through this strange land filled with strange names and even stranger notations. Sevens looked like 4s, and people named Pierce could be found under “B” … for book club.
“You know,” I told her, “the dinosaurs stopped using address books about a decade ago.”
She scowled. In my family, anger is a sign of recovery.
But as I said it, I noticed something: I was copying names into a tattered and torn reporter’s notebook, like the ones I’ve carried since I was a cub newspaper reporter. And not so different from the address book.
I quickly turned my body so she couldn’t see it. A little hospital hypocrisy never hurt anyone.