Rose Thibideau got out of rehab last week. Not your Betty Ford kind of rehab. I’m talking about the rehab wing of Mahoosuc Green, the Senior Living Facility where my Dad is.
He’s not in the rehab section, though. Dad moved in there a few years after our mother died. He has the cutest little apartment.
Anyways, Rose Thibideau’s children tried to get her to move into Mahoosuc Green, but she wasn’t budging. She was Eighty-nine and still living at home until she took a tumble, breaking one wrist and spraining the other. I don’t know how long she was lying on the floor before her daughter Clair found her. Of her seven kids, only Clair and her brother Noël still live here in town, and one of them tries to check in on Rose every day.
So Rose was in rehab six weeks. I run into Clair at the Marching Band Booster Bake Sale a couple a weekends ago, and she told me they used this little setback of her mother’s as an opportunity to do some negotiating. In order for Rose to come home, she had to agree to wear one of them LifeLines. That’s the necklace with the button you push if you’re in trouble or have fallen or something.
One of the first things Rose wanted to do upon leaving rehab was come to the A&P. She never needs much. She gets Meals on Wheels for lunch and Clair and her sister-in-law Ronnie alternate bringing her supper. But Rose isn’t really into it for the food. She likes coming to the A&P because she gets to drive around in our little motorized shopping cart. And God help anyone who gets in her way!
Now Rose was never that great a driver to begin with, always getting into little fender benders, nicking the curb. They finally took her license away four years ago when she was backing out of her garage, and put the car in drive instead of reverse. Rose looked over her shoulder, stepped on the gas pedal, and drove right through the back wall of her garage, taking out the clothes line and a weeks worth of clean laundry, slamming into the picnic table and stopping just inches from her Mary on a Half Shell statue.
Rose was stove up pretty bad, but somehow she managed to get out of the car, go into the house and call Noël. “The Virgin Mary saved me,” she told everyone. “It was a miracle!”
Needless to say, the sight of Rose Thibideau last Monday, behind the wheel of that motorized shopping cart made more than one of us employees at the A&P get religion real quick. To be honest, she started out OK, going up and down the first couple of aisles nice and slow, but Rose got her confidence back pretty quick. Next thing you know, she sent a pyramid of navel oranges cascading across the produce section. Then she took out an end of aisle display of fruit cocktail, scaring the “you know what” out of little Donny Bragdon. Donny was throwing a tantrum because he wanted some Cheetos when Rose hit the fruit cocktail bearing down of him full bore. Happily, he managed to leap behind his mother just as Rose went whizzing past. Donny was a complete angel for the rest of their shopping excursion.
You know, as much of a pain in the neck it is to have Rose wreaking havoc in the store, it was nice to see her back. If I have half the energy she has at her age, I’ll be happy. And that motorized cart looks like a blast!
That’s it for now. Catch you on the flip side!
Hear Ida Tell It: The Little Old Lady from Mahoosuc Mills
Coming Up This Week
August 30: Book Reading: The Sweet Life, Rangeley Public Library, http://www.rangeleylibrary.com/default.asp?Key=1&Cat=1 6:00pm, Rangeley, ME
Upcoming Book Events and Performances
September 8: A Visit With Ida, Active, Alive and Over 55 Club Luncheon, 1:00pm, Rye, NH
September 19: A Visit With Ida, Westbrook Seniors at Westbrook Community Center, 1:00pm, Westbrook, ME
September 23 & 24: The View From He’ah Variety Show with special guest international storyteller Antonio Rocha, http://actonenh.org/ Friday at 7:30pm, Saturday 2:00 & 7:30pm, Portsmouth, NH
October 11: A Visit With Ida, GFWC Maine State Conference, 7:00pm, Auburn, ME
October 25: Book Reading: The Sweet Life, Bailey Public Library, http://www.baileylibrary.org/ 6:30pm, Winthrop, ME