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Tape 2: A Christmas letter

Paper flowers by the dozens, daily cucumbers, and Christmas baskets

5 min

Tap any word below to hear it from there.

Agnes is making 15 to 20 paper-flower bouquets a day for the other residents, using paper and wire people bring her. The head man at the home got her about 20 big cucumbers she can peel herself, so she gets a dish of cucumbers every day (nobody else does), the Birchwood priest ordered three Christmas flower baskets, and she'll have Mass once a week right downstairs. She decides to stay for Christmas because Joey is going away and her face still looks terrible.

This story is part of Tape 2. You can hear it there at 23:09, along with everything around it.

What Agnes says

Words in light grey italics were hard to hear, so they may not be exact.

Today is a bingo and stuff. I hate not going to go to no bingo. I got to tell you that I am making flowers by the gobs. Oh, I get 15, 20 bouquets a day. And they bring me all kinds of papers, green and purple and blood red, and everything.

And so somebody gave me some paper and some, some wire and stuff. So when I'm not too upset, well, then I make some for this one and that one and that one. The other day I made a bouquet of seven flowers with a big stem and stuff.

for a little girl her the little girl's mother is taken care of me putting me eyes on my shoulder you know stuff that I have to have and stuff. So she come and ask me in such a nice way if I could give her some flowers.

I said sure so I made her now I made 10 or so stems of the lady that scrubbed the floors and stuff. She's coming over this afternoon and get it, get him. It was here for two days, but she had to go somewhere else and so.

And the Birchwood choir gave me and the little John that I told you about, he's so small that he is up to my cheek chin from the ground up to a chin he's that small and he's just as wide i i knew him from birchwood and so we we've got a little talk between the two of us we're we're saying on the same we're on the same same place now where we have our lunch and stuff so everything is fine And I'll call you more.

So they both want me to stay for Christmas, but I am not going to go, you know. I'm staying right here. That's our best place. I get a damn good grub and everything. Oh, the main guy got me cucumbers.

Oh, I wanted cucumbers so bad. And finally he goes to me. He guys, about 20 big cucumbers, oh, maybe six, seven inches long. And he says, Agnes, you go and peel them yourself, marriage for you. So now I've got cucumbers.

Every day I get cucumbers in the morning or not in the evening and in a place where we eat dinner time. And I get a lovely dish of cucumbers. Nobody else does but me. So the nurse is just wonderful about it.

And I says, well, I says, I'll do something for you too, you know, that. But I just love to have cucumbers because there is nothing else to give me, you know. And, oh, and one lady promised me, what you call it, promise me, what the hell oh she's going to give me some some uh some kind of a fruit from town and so so i'm getting along oh i forgot to tell you so the ladies from the birchwood birchwood the new priest and everything he ordered this from the from the uh uh from the place where you got that flowers and stuff.

And he ordered three baskets with the flowers and stuff and Santa Claus and everything for us. So I thought it was kind of nice, a virtue bunch, you know. But I would have loved to go to Birchwood place, but knowing that Joey is going away and stuff, I'm going to stay right here.

I'm going to go over here. Oh, I got a terrible looking face and stuff, but if I can't go, I'll go to Mass right here. We get Mass here once a week, right in our house, you know, right downstairs.

And so I'll go to Mass and have Holy Communion. So I just have to make the best of everything, you know.