The Sauna

I was given a writing prompt. The story has to begin with the phrase, "The stairs seemed" and then contain four additional words somewhere in the story: quench, drip, dribble, toenails.

The stairs seemed awfully steep for a sauna that catered to the elderly. I was looking for my grandmother who has walked away from me while I was trying to re-register her at the Senior Center. I knew that she loved the sauna so that was the first place that I went to look. By the looks of the stairs, I assumed that the center management only wanted the more agile of the seniors to utilize the sauna.

I started to ascend the steps when a very harsh voice called out, “What do you think you are doing, young lady?!” I turned to see a short, nicely muscled man about 60 years old. He was wearing a towel around his waist and I was praying that he had on shorts underneath.

“I believe my grandmother is in there and I have an appointment I need to take her to.” Grandmother was supposed to be seeing a therapist to help her cope with the recent loss of Grandfather. They did everything together and she was not doing well without him. She seemed lost.

“Well, you can’t go in there dressed like that. All that denim will clog the vent with its fibers.” He then pointed me towards the women’s dressing area. As I entered, I saw a bin marked “soiled” and could only imagine what constituted soiled around here. Next to it was a book shelf, most likely from IKEA, which had each shelf labeled with different sizes. Upon closer inspection, I was pleasantly surprised to see stacks of blue cotton cover-ups that matched the polish on my toenails. I was afraid that the older man intended me to enter into the sauna with nothing but a towel on. That would never do. Now I can be fully covered and be color coordinated.

I grabbed an appropriately sized cover up and changed. I took a fresh towel off of the stack by the door to the shower area and then stepped back out in the hallway leading to sauna. To my surprise, the older man was still standing just at the bottom of the stairs. Apparently he was waiting to make sure I didn’t sneak in with my jeans on. He had his arms crossed over his chest which made the 5 long grey hairs stand up. He looked at me sternly and asked, “What is your grandmother’s name?”

“Margaret Tennyman,” I answered.

His face immediately softened. It was then that I noticed the drip of sweat that was rolling down his neck to his chest. He must have gone into the sauna before meeting me at the stairs.

“You’re Margie’s granddaughter? She talks about you often. She is one of the best people. Period.”

My grandmother had been quite the burden lately due to her grief. It was strange to hear someone say that about her. I knew that she wasn’t a bad person but that she was a handful. Even the center staff would tell me that she had trouble following direction to the point of endangering herself. I loved my grandmother but I was struggling with her. And I had my own grief over the loss of my grandfather to contend with.

I mumbled out a short, “Thank you,” and tried to move past him to go up the stairs. He stepped in front of me and looked me in the eyes.

“You be gentle with her. Try to understand.”

I was startled. Trying not to show it, I said, “Yes, sir.”

He then let me pass. I opened the door and received a blast of hot air on my face. It was so steamy in there that I had trouble seeing. Then I heard her voice.

“…one of the happiest moments of my life. There she stood with her trophy hugged to her chest and smiling so wide you could see all of her missing teeth. I can see it like a photograph in my mind. That adorable blue dress with the pink flowers just made her blue eyes sparkle…”

As she continued her story, I realized that she was talking about me. She was telling the story of when I won my 3rd grade talent show. I had sung a song that my mother used to sing to me when she would rock me to sleep.

“…I was so proud that she had inherited her grandfather’s musical ability! My! Kenneth could sing! I believe that’s when I fell in love with him, when he sang to me.”

“Grandmother?”

I heard another voice answer as my eyes began to adjust. “Margie, is this her? Your songbird?”

“Jessie?! What are you doing here, honey? Dribble some more water on the stones and then come over here and sit next to me.”

I did as I was instructed and then told her, “Grandmother, you had me worried. You disappeared as I was talking to the girl at the front desk.”

The older man from the stairs sat down across from us and responded, “Kaylie is a nice enough girl but she sure can make someone drowsy from how long it takes to finish all her paperwork.”

As I looked around the sauna I saw four people in addition to my grandmother and myself. The sauna guard, who I later learned was named Ernest, a very plump woman with dark grey hair named Lucinda, a tall skinny woman with her long salt and pepper hair pulled into a tight bun named Lynn, and a small petite woman named Pearl. The woman who asked if I was my grandmother’s songbird was Lucinda.

“Oh dear, you shouldn’t have worried about me. I know everyone here and everyone here knows me. This is the safest place I could be, besides with my Kenneth.”

Everyone else nodded their agreement with this statement. Then as if she wasn’t interrupted, my grandmother continued to tell about the regional competition that 3rd grade me won with the song, “The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow.” She very clearly described the red curly wig I wore and how many bobby pins were required to keep in on my head over my thick brown hair. Grandmother described the glow of pride on my Grandfather’s face as he watched me perform. As she told the story I recalled how my grandfather lifted me up in the air to twirl me around saying, “Good job, Honeybee! That’s my girl!” My grandfather was always so strong. I didn’t think that anything could stop him, especially not cancer. The cancer came on so quick and by the time that he was diagnosed, he only had 8 days left on this earth.

I began to cry softly. Because of the darkness of the room and the sweat that was now pouring down my face, no one noticed.

Lynn then reflected on her sister. Lynn told us that her sister, Jane, would make the best pies and that Lynn had convinced her to enter one of them into the county fair’s contest. Jane, who loved to make pies, actually entered a pie in every category, and won each one. Lynn laughed as she shared that Jane was embarrassed because she thought everyone would be convinced that she cheated somehow.

Lucinda, who had laughed along with Lynn said, “I bet you sure miss those pies.”

“I sure do. It’s probably one of the things that I think of daily since I lost her. It’s a good memory so it doesn’t get me sad like some of the times that I think about her. What I would give to taste her chocolate cream pie again. She got the balance just right: not to light and not to dense. Oh! I think I just made my stomach grumble!” She chuckled as she rubbed her abdomen.

One-by-one, each shared a story about a loved one that they had lost. Lucinda spoke of her mother and the way that she would braid Lucinda’s hair so tight that she would have to skip recess for having a headache. Pearl shared how her best friend and she would try to convince the boys to let them play stick ball with them. Pearl said that one day her and Peggy dressed up like boys and tricked the boys into believing that they were new in the neighborhood. When Pearl and Peggy out hit every boy there, they took off their hats to reveal their true identities and it caused quite a ruckus. Ernest even shared how his wife and he used to go dancing every Friday night. Ernest said that she was admitted to the hospital for the last time on a Saturday and they had gone out dancing the night before.

Finally, Lucinda turned to me, “What about you, songbird? Do you have a story to share?”

I was taken aback. During the whole story-telling, I just viewed myself as an observer not an actual participant. Once I got over my initial shock, it wasn’t difficult to find a story to tell.

“When I was 5 years old, I wanted so badly to take the training wheels off of my bike. My dad, who was never really in the picture because he had to work all the time, couldn’t teach me. My grandfather was very eager to see me without the training wheels so he volunteered as soon as he heard my complaint. He took me to the garage and we took out my bike. I still remember, it had a pink and white basket with streamers hanging off of the handles. He got his tools and took the training wheels off. He tried to explain how to ride a two-wheeled bike but I must have made a face because he jumped on my tiny bike and started wheeling around. He looked so silly with his legs sticking out from the sides. I giggled as he rode around. Finally he stopped and said ‘Hop on.’ He held it as I got on and walked with me down the driveway to the sidewalk. He turned the bike and asked me if I was ready to try. When I nodded he pushed the bike but didn’t move his foot so I rode right over it. I fell before he even let go mostly because I was laughing at running over his foot. I kept laughing as he hopped up and down, holding his foot, acting as if I had rolled over it with a steamroller. He was always goofing around like that. Every time I take my bike out on the trails, I think of that day and smile.”

I looked at my grandmother and she was smiling. She patted my arm and said, “That was a great memory. You didn’t know it but I was watching from the window ready to bring out a Band-Aid. I should have known better. It would always take nearly losing a limb before you would cry over a boo boo.”

Ernest suddenly said, “Wait a minute, doesn’t Margie have an appointment to get to?”

I haven’t seen my grandmother look as happy as the time she spent in that sauna with her friends. All this time I thought my grandmother was retreating from the world and reality when all she needed as a place to relive her good memories. I’d been disconnecting from her as she tried to grieve and I was too caught up in the technical aspects of grief that I couldn’t grieve myself. How silly of me to think that grief could quench her spirit. True it is with great sadness that she, and I, must transition from experiencing my grandfather to reliving memories, but it’s in reliving those memories that he still lives. In that time in that sauna, I began to understand my grandmother in a whole new way. Suddenly, she didn’t seem like such a burden, but rather a comrade through a trial.

“No,” I answered Ernest. “I believe she got everything she needed here.”