Millie

At the end of my bicycle ride to Regency-at-the-Park this afternoon, I found Millie right away. She was sporting her flowerdy hat as she sat in the "bird room" across from the front entrance door (the door that won't open unless you hit a green button on the pillar) watching her budgie chatter away in the white cage. The only other person in the room was a developmentally challenged young woman who didn't say a word.

"My favorite person!" Millie exclaimed. I grinned and wondered if Millie says that to everyone. I've always thought her eyes twinkled more for my husband than for me, though she loves us both. I haven't seen her since Husband and I and my parents sprung her for an afternoon out a few weeks ago.

Millie was once my dad's office nurse. I hear that she was an excellent one. When I'd drop into town for a visit, she'd sometimes be sitting at my parents' dining room table, chatting up a storm with my mother. Later, I took a leave of absence from my work in California to come north to spend time around Husband for three months while we were dating. During those three months I stayed in Millie's home on B Street. She lived simply then, enjoying her newspapers, watching the local religious TV channel, and eating healthful food supplemented with Bragg's Liquid Aminos from a bottle kept in her refrigerator door rack.

Millie's a hospitable, welcoming person. She fussed a bit today that it still hurts where they pulled some of her teeth several weeks ago, and she'd like it if the dentist would make her a bridge. She makes it clear that she'd rather not be living at Regency. She didn't like the Oddfellows Home before this, either. I can't blame her. Who would line up to live in a care home with THAT name???

Millie takes an interest in the people around her, cheerily greeting the family that came through on the way to the courtyard with their mother in a wheelchair. She watches which ones get visitors and told me bits and pieces of information about the people passing by. She didn't recall if her son is in town or on a job in New Jersey; the story was different both times she talked about it this afternoon. But she's certain he hasn't called or come by. Having met her son and having experienced him to be a cheery, engaging person, I wonder if she's correct or if she has simply forgotten.

"Give your mom a hug," Millie said as I put my bicycle helmet on to head home before dark. "She's like a mother to me, and you're like my sister," she added affectionately, twinkling again. I smiled. She and my mother are both in their 80's, with Millie being the older one, as I recall. That's okay. I can always appreciate having a cheery sister who sports a flowerdy hat and declares that I'm her favorite person.