White Walls

White walls are just white walls unless you do something about it. She did. With a pair of scissors she cut out every flower from every magazine, postcard, and greeting card she could find until the entire wall was nothing but a paper garden of her own making. Red roses, white roses, purple violets, pink tulips, and yellow daffodils brought life into a rather lifeless bedroom. In the corner a white rocker with a blue cushion she had brought from home. Many a child she’d rocked to sleep in that paint chipped chair. Beside it, on a side table provided for her, an old lamp and an old photograph resting on a handspun doily. She no longer looked like the young woman in the photo. The copper headed maid in white standing next to her soldier in his dress blues were nothing more than a memory to her now. The mirror on the wall showed her the sad truth revealing her white steel hair and wrinkled face. She looked towards the door. Nothing special about the door. No one comes through it anymore except for the nurses that come in to check her pulse and to deliver her meals. Nothing special about that. Special ended when her husband died. Special ended when her daughters dropped her off at the home and promised to visit her every Sunday. Sundays became holidays and holidays became Mother’s Day and then they stopped coming altogether. No visits. No phone calls. Just a couple of cards through the year donned with a rose or two on the cover.

Pulling herself up she looked at her prison. A hospital bed covered in a dollar store comforter so not to seem like a punishment for getting old. A window giving a view of a patch of grass that mocked the very existence of a true lawn. The rest of the “backyard” was a cement playground made for easy access wheelchairs and for those like her who shuffled across the floor dragging their house slippers as they walked. Tired of standing, she sat down on the edge of her bed looking down at her bony hand that gripped the sheets. Her thin gold band dimly shined on her thin finger. She stared back at the roses.

“This is Vi Rose.” The nurse spoke behind the woman’s back. “She’s been here for quite some time haven’t you sweetheart?” The nurse raised her voice higher so Vi Rose could hear. “Hi, Vi. How are you?”

“Fine.” Her mouth shook she spoke.

“This is Jean Marie. She’s the new nurse on the floor.”

“Hi, Ms. Clifton. It’s very nice to meet you.” Jean shouted.

“Ya hungry, darlin’?” The nurse brought the wheelchair in to take her to the dining room. “She’s been falling lately, poor thing. Been kind of depressed. I would be, too if my family put me here. She never gets a visitor. Poor thing.”

They talked about her like she wasn’t there. Just a statue of flesh and bone with blinking eyes.

“Come on, Ms. Clifton. Let’s go to the dining room. Put your feet up, darlin’.”

Rolling down the hallway, she could see a new family checking out the room next to hers. A couple of sisters arguing about where to put their mother. Out one of their mouths, she could hear them say, “Mama’s gonna hate these white walls.”