The Carrot Skirt

I sat with my purple clipboard on my lap, my computer open to Optima—the system used for keeping electronic records—on the bedside table next to me. Mary lay in bed, across from where I sat, with the head of her hospital bed reclined to forty-five degrees.

She had broken her hip three weeks ago and was healing slowly. Her pain was unmanageable, making it nearly impossible for her to participate in physical or occupational therapy.

Mary liked me, though. When I first introduced myself, she rolled her eyes and cursed, but then I told her, “The best part of the kind of therapy I do is that we can do it sitting down.” I pulled a chair over to her bedside, and she warmed up to me pretty quickly.

“Something I’d like to try with you today is developing a timeline of major events in your life. All you have to do is remember,” I smiled.

“I remember everything. Do you think I have a problem with my memory?” Mary asked, her eyes narrowing.

I had to tread lightly here. Mary had dementia. It was relatively mild, but this task would likely present her with some challenges. I expected her to be able to recall most major events, like high school graduation, marriage, births of children, retirement, and even deaths. However, I didn’t expect her to accurately remember every date, nor did I expect the information to be perfectly organized.

“Mary,” I began, “I know you will remember the events in your life that are important to you. I want to help you organize them and write them down.”

My response must have been convincing because Mary turned to me and said, “Alright. I was born in 1930.” She went on to tell me her exact birthday.

“And do you remember the town where you were born?”

“Oh, no. We didn’t live in town. I was born at home. We lived in the Ozarks.”

“This isn’t so bad, is it?” I asked as I began writing the information on the blank page on my clipboard in large print so she could see.

“What’s next?” she asked, clearly ready to get the task over with.

“What is the first major life event you remember after being born?” I asked. She was steering the car; I was just holding on and hoping she wouldn’t throw me out the window.

“I reckon me, my sisters, and my mama going into town.”

I raised my eyebrows, beckoning for more.

“Well, I remember how Mama was so proud of my sisters because they had curly hair. But my hair, it was pin-straight. We would load up into the wagon—we couldn’t afford a car, you see—and she would fluff my sisters’ curls, then put a hat on me.”

“Oh,” I said, as sadness filled Mary’s eyes.

“I always thought Mama was ashamed of me because of my straight hair.”

I wrestled with what to label this memory as I wrote out the timeline and finally settled on Trips Into Town, though a more fitting title might have been The Shame of a Mother Never Departs.

“Well, what’s next? Maybe when you graduated high school?” I asked.

“I didn’t graduate.”

“How far did you go in school?”

“Tenth grade.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I ran away and got married.”

My jaw dropped. Mary read the shock on my face because she smiled and said, “Yup. Sixteen years old. One day I left school—I was tired of that teacher telling me what to do, you see. I walked all the way home—barefoot, mind you—and there was Mama, hanging out the wash. She didn’t tell me hello, didn’t ask me what was wrong. No. Mama handed me the basket and said, ‘Get to work.’ Well, I tell you what, I sure didn’t like that. I dropped the clean wash in the yard and went on walkin’ again. I was walking along the road when Jim pulled up alongside me.”

“And who is Jim?” I interrupted, now totally enthralled in the tale.

“He was my boyfriend,” she said, a slow and sassy smile spreading across her face.

“Mary!” I scolded with a chuckle. “Go on.”

“Well, I got in the car, and that was that. We drove all the way to New Mexico, got married, and that was that.”

“I think there are a couple of events we can add to your timeline.” I wrote the following: Dropped Out, Ran Away From Home, and Got Married. I should have written: The Education System Failed Me, My Mother Failed Me, and Became a Child Bride.

My heart cracked as I looked at the woman before me. We had made it only to her sixteenth year on the timeline, and she had endured so much. And here she was, eighty-five years old, with a broken hip, in a nursing home, still suffering.

Before I could prompt her for the date and details of her wedding, she interrupted.

“I just thought of something else.”

“Okay,” I said, readying my pen.

“I had a carrot skirt. My mama made it from an old flour sack—you remember those, don’t you, Liz?”

I nodded, knowing what she was referring to, though being born in the mid-90s, I, in fact, didn’t remember when clothing was made from flour sacks.

“Yup, I had this skirt with bright orange carrots on it. I don’t know why I remember that so well, but I do,” a smile spread across her face.

I drew a bubble next to the early years of her life and wrote Owned a Carrot Skirt.

“How long were you and Jim married?”

“He died in 2000. Cancer.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, truly sympathetic to her loss.

“But I know I’ll see him again. I believe in Jesus, just like I’m sure you do. Yup, we will see Jim again.”

I nodded. Not a good time to tell her I was an atheist.

“Well, Liz. What else?”

“Tell me about your family. You have a son, right?”

“One son. That’s all I’ve got.”

“No grandchildren?”

“Not anymore. My granddaughter drowned,” her words came out slow and angry.

At this point, I was ready to crumple the page and toss it, along with the pen, in the trash.

Tears filled her eyes. And mine too.

“I don’t know if we’ll see her again. She was on drugs.”

“We will. I remember learning about God’s mercy in Sunday school. She is with her grandpa, Jim. And with Jesus,” I had suddenly found my faith.

“Can I be done remembering for today?” she asked, and closed her eyes.

I gathered my things and stood to leave. But before I could go, Mary said, “Tell the nurse I need a pain pill, will ya? Not a Tylenol. Something stronger. And see if I can have a Xanax too.”