The start of a beautiful friendship.she rocked to and fro

As I walked up the creaky old stairs, my memory flashed back and I saw her in a rocking chair. She gently rocked herself to and fro, her face was expressionless as I recalled. In my mind I knew this was her. She turned slowly towards me as I stepped on the wooden porch. She must have heard the board creak, I thought I had scared her but a beautiful welcoming smile lit up her face. She was old but she had tell tale signs of an unforeseen beauty, of which I was sure she possessed in her youthful days.
I recollected how she motioned me to come and sit next to her to which I obeyed. She started to talk as if we were old friends even though I never saw her in my life, I had just arrived for the interview. I listened as she told me in a very rickety and soft voice of Timmy, a little menace of her childhood days.
” Well one day I caught a small frog at lunch time.” She said and told of how a bright idea came to her. ” I went on the hunt for Timmy around the school yard, finally I found him torturing poor Sean Johnson at the back of the school’s building. He had a squirmy fat caterpillar between his thumb and index finger, and held down Sean whilst shoving it inches from the boy’s face.” She paused and shook her head and smiled. ” I called out to him, hey Timmy do you wanna some chocolate? Timmy was also very greedy so he let go of Shawn and came up to me…”
“Where is it? ” She mimicked the bully’s voice to which I smiled.
Suddenly she stopped and looked at me . ” Do I know you?” she asked politely as if it was the first time she saw me. I was so engrossed in the story that I forgot that the lady whom called me for the interview told me that she was an Alzheimer’s case.

The end of a beautiful friendship.empty rocking chair

I did not hear the end of the story until some time later, when I started working there full time. Her name was Emma Rosenberg. She often spoke about her husband and children on her good days. On very bad days she did not even want to be touched. One minute she was as gentle as a flower and the next as fiery as a fox.
One day as we sat outside on the porch sipping tea and having some crackers, I asked her what happen to Timmy that day. She smiled something wicked. I told her where to start because I did not want her to trail off again. ” I told him to close his eyes and open his mouth because I had the chocolate in my closed fist and he did. Immediately I pushed the small frog in his mouth and Timmy never even stop to chew but gulped the frog down his throat!” She laughed a hearty laugh, better than I ever heard her laugh.
Sometimes I even pretended that I never heard the story and let her repeat it from that point.There were times she couldn’t recall it at all, those were the bad days. But when she did the melodious sound of her laughter would often ring out much to the surprise of her daughter, who hired me.
I stood in the porch looking at the empty rocking chair. Tears welled up in my eyes and spilled over. She was gone now and I felt honored to share the company of Mrs. Emma Rosenberg… A fine lady indeed.