When D.’s grandmother, Sissie, fell and broke her hip back in September, we knew that she was in for a tough recovery. At ninety-six years old she’s sharp as a tack mentally, but she’s not exactly in tip-top triathlon-ready shape. Come to think of it, neither am I, really, and I’m about sixty years her junior without the excuse of a broken hip, but that’s really neither here nor there and LOOK, INTERNETS! A SHINY COIN! TO DISTRACT YOU FROM MY PHYSICAL FITNESS FAILURES!

Anyway.

Sissie is frail, weighing in at not even a hundred pounds, and for the last, say, twenty years her favorite afternoon work-out has consisted of eating a single Pringle and drinking half a cup of coffee while she and D.’s mother, Martha (aka “Martie”), watch re-runs of Matlock. We’ve encouraged Sis to go hog-wild and have two Pringles, but it’s futile; she has refused on the grounds that she doesn’t want to lose her girlish figure.

You just can’t stay a size four for over eighty years by scarfing down the potato chips, people.

So given her physical limitations, therapy was a huge help in terms of getting a post-surgery Sissie out of a wheelchair and onto a walker, but she tired easily. Once the hospital discharged her – having done all they could do – Sissie insisted on going back to her home of over fifty years as opposed to “one of those death houses,” as she so lovingly referred to the nursing homes that were her only other viable option.

And as a result, she and Martha have lived with round-the-clock home health nurses for almost three months.

For the last several weeks, it’s been increasingly clear that the at-home care option was going to have to come to a close. Scheduling and supervising what essentially amounts to a small nursing staff has been a huge job, way more than Martha realized it would be, and just like a mother with a newborn baby, she has been the first one awake when Sissie has needed something in the middle of the night. More often than not Martha has had to get out of bed to rouse the night nurse (“Mother’s ringing her bell! She’s ringing her bell!”), and the wear of the relentless schedule has taken a toll in every possible way. On top of all that, sadly, Sissie’s physical condition hasn’t improved very much at all.

There have been bright spots, however; Martha and Sissie both have grown particularly fond of Carol and Mary, two home health workers who have proved to be completely and utterly reliable. They have shown up for work on time, loved Sissie like a member of the family, and each of them has been more than happy to stay with Sissie so that Martha could run to the bank or the mall or the beauty parlor for an hour or two in the mornings without fear that she’d return home at lunchtime to find a nurse sound asleep and Sissie attempting to break free of her walker so she could make a hot pan of cornbread and put a turkey breast in the oven, steadily complaining that THAT NURSE-WOMAN, MARTHA, SHE DOESN’T DO ANYTHING, SO I DECIDED TO JUST FIX LUNCH MYSELF.

At one point Martha remarked that she and Mary would be absolutely perfect roommates, that they just got along so well and had the best time talking, but when Martha opened her morning paper about a month ago and saw Mary’s photograph staring at her from the front page, she became slightly concerned that rooming with Mary might actually involve setting up house in the county jail. In which case Martha would probably take a pass on the whole roommate thing no matter how cute their matching bedspreads might be.

Not to mention that Martha wouldn’t be caught dead in horizontal stripes.

Apparently Mary was charged with a crime a few years ago after she had an altercation with her estranged husband, and since the wheels of justice are oftentimes slow to turn in small Southern towns, Mary was released on bail and never contacted again. When Mary explained the situation to her almost-roomie Martie, she was insistent that she’d lived in the same place with the same phone number ever since the unfortunate (alleged, involuntary) manslaughter-ish incident occurred, but since the authorities had never gotten in touch with her about, you know, a trial, Mary just assumed that nothing was going to come of the charges, that she was perfectly free to continue her work with the elderly and, I guess, to play Thelma to Martha’s Louise.

Not that Martha has ever done anything illegal, of course, because, I mean, she would just never, although there was that one time she bought “a blouse at the Goody’s and there was this darlin’ new clerk, a young clerk, and she had the most beautiful complexion even though she really wore too much make-up for my taste, but you could tell that under her make-up her skin was just peaches and cream, well the cute young girl didn’t take the security tag off of the blouse and do you know that those sensors, those sensors at the front of the store WENT OFF LIKE A SIREN and I just stood there! Just stood there! And my friend Rubena said, “MAAAAA-THA? IS THAT YOU THAT TOOK SOMETHING?” And I was mortified! Just mortified! But the manager came and helped me and just laughed and laughed because he knows me very well since I am a regular customer, and we got everything taken care of. We did!”

Oh, it’s funny because it’s true.

Needless to say, Martha was a bit put off by Mary’s alleged criminal behavior. And while I’m sure Martha would make an absolutely fabulous companion at a trial, what with dreaming up all sorts of clever uses for scarves and wraps in terms of covering up one’s handcuffs during the daily perp walk, it’s a sight we’ll never see. As it turned out, Mary’s alleged crime came to light right about the time that Martha and the rest of the family decided that it was probably best to explore other healthcare options for Sissie. It was absolutely necessary – but understandably sad. Sissie is the heart and soul of D.’s family, and I think we all sort of expected that she’d be at her house raking leaves and sweeping the driveway until she was at least 110.

So, long story long, Sissie has moved into a nursing home. She has been quite the trooper, and she knows that while it’s not the same as being at home, it’s the very best option for right now. Martha vows that it’s the most difficult decision she’s ever made – and I don’t doubt her for one second – because “it’s just my sweet privilege to take care of my mother! I would do anything for my mother! I just can’t imagine being at the house without my mother!” But she and Sissie are both doing well. They really are. This is no small feat considering that the two of them resist change to such a degree that they have had the exact same hairstyles for the last thirty years.

I mean, if the Aqua Netted silver ice cream cone atop your head isn’t broken, then really it would be just plain foolish to try to fix it.