“Do you have anything you want to say, Uncle Frank?” Felice bent over the old man’s bed, talking in the direction of his head propped on a pillow. The lighting was dim. “Any last words?”
“Huh?”
“He can’t hear well,” explained the nurse in attendance. Only a few of Frank’s remaining relatives were there in his bedroom.
“ANY LAST WORDS?” shouted Felice.
“What?”
Not only was he fading fast, but he also had poor hearing for years. The nurse fumbled in his bedside table for his hearing aids.
“Damn.” She couldn’t find them.
“What?” Frank still had a few questions left in his final minutes.
‘I SAID, DAMN,” explained Cheryl, the nurse.
“I can’t hear.”
“WE’RE TRYING TO LOCATE YOUR HEARING AIDS.” That was Frank’s niece Fredda, who could shout as loudly as Felice, her cousin.
“Is that you, Felice?” The old man’s eyesight was going fast.
“Can you get his glasses?” Otto asked the nurse who’d given up on the hearing aids, now searching for Ativan.
“What?”
“YOUR GLASSES, UNCLE FRANK. WE’LL TRY TO GET THEM.”
“Who’s that?” The old man almost sat up. He had no more sit-ups in him, however.
“THAT WAS OTTO. HE TOOK A PLANE ALL THE WAY FROM CLEVELAND TO SEE YOU.”
“Otto?”
“YES, OTTO,” chimed in Fredda.
“First Fredda? And now Otto?” questioned the dying man who was down to his last few words.
“RIGHT. FREDDA, AND OTTO, AND…”
Uncle Frank sank into his pillow. “Forget about the glasses…”
David Sydney is a physician who writes fiction in and out of the EHR (Electronic Health Record).