Norma's Bathroom Serenade
There is so much beauty in the world.
Norma slept late again today, staying abed long past the prescribed time for her arsenal of medications. I comfort myself with the thought that her sleep is restorative, but I know I relish it because it gives me more time to read, write and daydream. She is slipping away. Unable to walk unassisted. Unable to converse, even when prompted, Indifferent to and perhaps unaware of the people around her. I hope that in her long sleep she dreams of that “home” she yearns and still pleads for when she's conscious,
It being a Sunday, no one visits us today. So I fill in the time she's awake with some old TV westerns (“Bat Masterson,” “The Lone Ranger”), the Ken Burns country music segment covering 1953 to 1963 and finally a DVD of “The Electric Horseman.” There's little in the westerns that visibly stimulates her, but the Burns segment (which we've viewed literally dozens of times) draws her in with its Patsy Cline stories and songs. It also spotlights our mutual favorite—Willie Nelson—and the accounts of how he got “Crazy” to Cline and “Hello Walls” to Faron Young. She sits slouched on the sofa in her pajamas, not exactly animated by the narrative but occasionally humming along to the songs. She is long past the point at which she comments on what she sees.
Willie is also a big deal in “The Electric Horseman” as Robert Redford's assistant and sidekick, Wendell. He's the voice on the soundtrack as well, singing such treasures as “Mamma's Don't Let You Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” “Midnight Rider,” “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” and “Hands on the Wheel.” Norma dozes throughout the movie but stirs when she hears one of the songs. I so want a livelier response, but I rejoice in the little I get.
When the closing credits roll by, I wake her up, leverage her into her wheel chair and trundle her into the bathroom to sponge bathe and otherwise prepare her for bed. As I put her feet into heavy socks, the cries out in pain. I apologize and make a joke of it by singing a few phrases from Mickey Gilley's “Here Comes the Hurt Again.” That song rings so pleasantly in my mind that I grab my phone and play Gilley's original version for her. Then it's on to his frisky “Don't the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time.” From there my thoughts grasshopper to Gilley's cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis, from whose vast catalog I choose “What's Made Milwaukee Famous” as Lewis performs it on “Hee Haw.”
Norma continues sitting there in the bathroom because there's no stopping me now Hearing Lewis sing the line “Baby's begged me not to go” flashes me on to some of the other great lyrics about abused and misused women—which naturally shifts me to Emmylou Harris singing Dolly's “To Daddy.” Norma instantly starts humming along with Emmylou. Hoping for a glimmer of light, I remind her she rubbed shoulders with Emmylou on the Down From the Mountain Tour when she was doing PR for Ralph Stanley. And now I'm weeping--not so much out of pity for the abused women as appreciation for the chiseled perfection of the songs that depict their woes. (There are certain songs that to this day I can't sing all the way through without my voice breaking, chief among them “Bringing Mary Home,” “Holding Things Together” and “Dream of a Miner's Child.”)
I reach the end of my personal Via Dolorosa by playing Norma Gus Hardin's “I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can.” I tell her that I once went drinking with Hardin and her producer, Mark Wright, at the Hall of Fame Inn. She nods as if she knows what I'm talking about, but she asks no questions, makes no remarks. Whether I've gilded her spirits with these Golden Oldies, I don't know. But it's done wonders for me, and I tuck her in with a set list of other classics coursing through my head.
There is so much beauty in the world.