Hearing Angels

Grandma

I learned Friday night that my grandmother had been moved from assisted living to Lewis-Gale Hospital.

She's been having difficult moving about after she fell several weeks ago. She also has diabetes and is grossly overweight, all of which combined makes for poor health.

I went to the hospital yesterday to visit her and see how she is doing. Her door was shut and I could hear a nurse or therapist scolding her for not wanting to exercise. They were trying to get her to move her swollen legs so she can get some circulation going. I finally went in and let her know I was there. Her face always lights up when she sees me.

It took three nurses to get her back into the bed and resting comfortably. When it was quiet again, I asked the usual questions, how she was feeling, what the doctors were saying.

"A neurologist I think it was came in to see me with my regular doctor," she said. "He asked me all kinds of questions."

"What'd he ask you?"

"What day it is, how old I am, that kind of thing. I told him. He asked me who the president is. I said, George Bush," Grandma said. "Then he asked me who the vice president is, and I said Cheney." She looked over at me. "I don't know his first name. What's his first name?"

"Dick," I replied.

"Humph. That suits him," Grandma said. I turned to hide my smile.

A few moments later, Grandma asked me if I heard the music. No, I don't hear any music, I told her.

"I listened to it all night. I know the City of Salem said they were going to pipe music everywhere and I'm hearing it," she said.

"It's the Vicodin, Grandma. The pain medication you're taking," I said.

I asked her what they were playing. "Can I sleep in your barn tonight, mister?" she said. I asked her how that went and she sang it to me. She got all the words right, too - here's a version of the song.

I asked her what other songs she was hearing, and she said the Wabash Cannonball, the Wreck of the Old 97, and Little Mee Haw (which I can't find but I've no doubt is some song from the 1920s.) She was hearing the songs of her youth.

We talked a bit and I asked her if she still heard the music. "Not right now," she said. "They're changing the record on the player."

As long as I kept her talking, she didn't hear her music, but as soon as it grew quiet, she'd ask me again if I heard the songs. "I don't understand why you can't hear it," she fretted. "Why am I hearing it and you're not?"

"Grandma, you're hearing angels," I finally said. She accepted that and not long after, I left her to sleep.