Time to say goodbye

Even now, when I am nearly the same age as she was, I still miss her.

After several years of working with Mrs. Phagun, helping her keep the group home for elderly Retarded Women she had operated for 50 years, I left the job that had brought us together. But the friendship born of the work we shared grew and broadened to include Kathy, my wife. She, like me, had no chance and fell under Mrs. P’s spell, and soon our relationship with her was just a natural part of us.

Almost every other Saturday, we visited Mrs. Phagun’s house and were given lunch (fish sticks, boiled onions, and mashed potatoes - her favorites - I often wondered if we were, in part, an excuse for her to eat foods she was not supposed to eat.

Arriving at Mrs. P.’s house, it took at least ten minutes to get from the back door through the Ladies’ living room to Mrs. Phagun’s dining room. The Ladies demanded their visit, and we were happy to oblige.

Maggie and the Ladies loved to talk about the "old days" when I worked there. It was impossible to think of them as separate from Mrs. Phagun, and now, because there wasn’t a veneer of professionalism to maintain, I didn’t have to. Mrs. Phagun, Maggie, and the Ladies had become a family to me, and that had become more intense because it was by choice rather than by birth.

As I walked away from them to Mrs. Phagun’s dining room, I heard the Ladies talking over a "joke" I had told and laughing, as delighted as if I had produced a handful of flowers out of thin air. I felt at that moment as though I was picked up and carried, ever so gently, to the next room like a warm wave at the beach.

Mrs. Phagun regarded me with one of her looks and said, "You do get them going, don’t you?"

"Well", I said, "I do try."

"Yes, she said with a frown, "You can be trying."

"Don’t I know it?" Kathy said.

"I never should have let the two of you meet", I said, “It is hazardous to my health and self-esteem. You gang up on me."

"Hey, " said Maggie as she entered the room, "don’t forget about me."

"I’m not likely to - I’ve got bruises to remind me," I retorted.

"Not one you didn’t deserve," Maggie said, looking me in the eye.

And so it went week after week, sometimes at Mrs. Phagun’s house and other times at our house.

A few years went by that way. Mrs. Phagun’s family was amazed that she would come to my house - she never visited others' houses, including her own.

Joan, Mrs. P’s daughter, would look at me with that same look as her mother and say, "How do you get her to do it?"

I would reply to Joan with words to the effect that, as she knew better than I, no one got her Mother to do anything she did not want to do.

Then one week, Mrs. Phagun phoned and said, "Victor, when you come to pick me up, would you mind driving by the old farm. The ‘Farm’ she had been born and raised on over 85 years ago was still there and not far out of the way. I said I would be happy to.

” I said. "Is there any reason you want to?"

"No," she said, "I just would like to see it one last time."

"I’ll take you there anytime you want," I said. "Are you OK?"

She said she was fine and didn’t I know what a tough old bird she was? I said that I had no doubt.

When I picked her up, we drove to the farm and sat for a while in front of the house. We didn’t speak. I could see she was "running through some old files," as she would say.

After a few minutes, she said, "Well, that’s enough of that - let's go.

Nothing more was said, and nothing was asked. Kathy and I knew if she wanted to tell us something, she would.

It was Wednesday of the next week that I got a call from Joan. She told me that Mrs. Phagun had died in her own kitchen. She had choked on a piece of bread and died in Maggie’s arms.

Even in the deep emptiness of our loss, I knew that she had wanted to die at home, still independent, unbowed by life’s problems. Of late, she had complained that there was too much interference with her home by the state, and she was ready to "give it up". I understood, but didn’t have to like it - and I didn’t.

Joan contacted me before the funeral and asked me to be a pallbearer. She said that her mother wouldn’t let anyone but me take her anywhere, so she knew that it was what her mother would have wanted. I was touched and knew that Joan and I had become friends

At the wake, I walked to her coffin, and before I knew what I was doing, I kissed her on her forehead. She was so cold, but our relationship was not.

I did that last service for my dear friend, taking her to her final resting place, and knew in my heart she was at peace.

I still miss her.