Can't Wait to Get to Heaven

Going Home

After the nurse had checked and rechecked Elner, Dr. Henson, her emergency room doctor, was handed the report. He had come to visit with Elner several times a day since she had been there, and the more he got to know her, the better he started feeling about the human race. All findings had cleared him of any negligence, he was not being fired, and evidently the hospital was not being sued and his patient was doing great, and he was in a great mood.

He opened the door and walked into her room with a big smile. “Good morning, Sunshine.”

“Well, hey,” she said, happy to see him.

“I hate to tell you this, because we wish we could keep you, but I’m sending you home today, young lady!”

“You are? Is my niece coming to get me?”

“Nope. We just called her and told her not to come, because there is someone here who wants to escort you home in style.”

After the nurses packed her up, they put her in a wheelchair and Nurse Boots Carroll and Dr. Henson rolled her to the elevator and downstairs, through the lobby, and then through the big double glass doors. And parked right out in front was a long shiny black limousine. When Franklin Pixton had reported to Mr. Thomas York, the head of the hospital board, about the old lady who fell out of her tree, Mr. York had been fascinated and had replied, “Now, there is someone I’d like to meet.” And so when the chauffeur opened the back door, a distinguished-looking older man stepped out of the back and said, taking off his hat, “Mrs. Shimfissle, I’m Thomas York. I wonder if you might allow me the privilege of accompanying you home?”

“Well, sure,” she said.

Elner and Mr. York chatted away as they drove toward Elmwood Springs, and she found out that even though he was a retired CEO of a bank, he had a fondness for chickens as well. His grandfather had been a chicken farmer. They had a grand time all the way home discussing the superior qualities of the Rhode Island Red versus the blue speckled hen. As they neared Elmwood Springs, she looked out the window. “I just hope Merle’s out in his yard to see me come driving up in a limousine. I don’t remember the trip to the hospital, but I sure am enjoying the trip home. I never dreamed I’d ever get to ride in the back of one of these things.”

When they drove down her street, she asked if the driver could slow down so maybe some of her other neighbors would see her. When they pulled up to her house, Norma and most of her neighbors were waiting for her, and she was so happy to see that Louise Franks and her daughter, Polly, had come to town to welcome her home as well.

After Mr. York had come up on the porch and eaten a piece of welcome home Bundt cake and visited for a while, and before he left, Cathy Calvert took a picture of him and Elner standing by the limo to put in the newspaper. When the limo drove off, Elner turned around and said to Norma, “Where’s old Sonny? I can’t wait to see that old fool.”

“He’s inside,” Norma said. “I locked him in, I knew you’d want to see him the minute you got home.”

Elner walked in and Sonny was in his spot on the back of the couch. She went over and picked him up, and sat down and petted him. “Hey, Sonny, did you miss me?” But Sonny acted as though he didn’t even know she had been gone, and after allowing himself to be petted a short while, he jumped out of her lap and headed to his dish for a snack. Elner laughed. “Cats, they don’t want you to know they care a thing in the world about you, but they do.”

That first night home all the members of the Sunset Club gathered in her side yard with their chairs, and it was a particularly beautiful sunset that evening. Verbena remarked, “Elner, I think that’s the good Lord’s way of saying welcome home!” And Elner was glad to be back home again, until the next morning when she opened up her dirty-clothes basket and looked in.

“Uh-oh.” Never in a million years did she figure someone would go rooting around in there. “Now what?”

Elner walked over to Ruby’s house and knocked on the door. “Yoo hoo.”

“Come on in, Elner,” Ruby said from the kitchen. “I’m still doing my dishes.”

Elner walked back and said, “I just came over to thank you again for feeding Sonny and the birds and straightening the house and all.”

“Oh, you’re more than welcome, honey. Glad to do it.”

Elner nodded, then as casually as she could, she inquired, “You didn’t happen to find something in my dirty-clothes basket, did you?”

“Like what?” asked Ruby.

“Oh, nothing…just something.”

“No, I didn’t find anything but clothes. Why?”

“I just wondered.”

“Oh.”

“Well, OK, then.”

Ruby hated to lie, but she and Macky had made a pact. And as a registered nurse and a good neighbor, she knew it was for the best. Old people and firearms do not mix. Old Man Henderson who used to live up the street shot half his lip off fooling around with a loaded weapon.

As she walked back home, Elner was worried. If Norma had found it, she was in big trouble again.