I don’t remember what my first word was. I don’t remember what my second, third, or fourth words were. I presume that the word I uttered was a noun, an indication that I wanted a person, place, or thing. This first word must have been unintelligible. I probably kept at it until the word was comprehensible. And I’ll bet I then got what I wanted.

This is how it should work. My brother Matthew was born retarded. His ability to speak was impaired to the degree that he’d never be understood. The two times I saw him, he made sounds – this sufficed and he did get what it was he wanted.

The bus was a great storage unit after moving

I don’t know if my parents ever thought it ironic that they, who were born language users. who valued the spoken and written word, had a child that was verbally impaired. I’d ask them both this question, but they are now both dead.

I suppose that I’m not alone in having questions, after the fact, for deceased parents. I suspect that, like most, I was asking questions before they died. Then after, the questions continued to pile up. Now I have before me a pretty large pile and it’s still growing.

Neither me nor El, my sister, had children. We were two women in the same family then, who didn’t have kids. I do wonder, if either of us had had kids, would they have been asking questions of us? And, after our respective deaths, would they amass their own question piles?

El and I are the end of the line. The only problem is that the train isn’t going to go around and turn back. The family tree is looking fairly lopsided. I didn’t have children because I lacked having any maternal instinct. El didn’t have children because she had severe endometriosis. I may also have had this condition, but I never had it checked out.

I got to thinking about all of the above in talking with one of the Eagle Hotel residents. She told me that as a child she got hit in the head with a baseball bat. This could explain her going off, at times, on some pretty wild associative tangents. I am polite, but after a while I zone out. She talks fast and I find it takes too much energy to follow her train of thinking. Her train, too, is stopping at the end of the tracks and is not going to turn around.

This individual also said that she could never have children because she was sterilized. This is such a strange term. I have not questioned her further about this, but it does make me think that perhaps she was at one point in time institutionalized.

She owns two vehicles, which are across the street, in the hotel parking lot. I asked her today, why two vehicles? And she said because she uses them for storage. I was taken aback by my own response, which was that this made sense to me. Of course, why else would someone have close access to two vehicles that aren’t working?

And, then there was the word. . .

Next: 248. 9/10/23: A Day at Home