A rendezvous with Rosie

Friday was Rosie's favourite day of the week.

For that was the day that Jack came to visit her.

Every Friday afternoon at three o'clock in the afternoon, the nurses would take her into the back garden of the nursing home. As she was confined to a wheel chair she would be taken close to the conservatory. It was her favourite part of the garden and an area where she did not require constant supervision from the nurses.

Jack always arrived at the same time, usually around three thirty.

"Hello Rosie"

A smile came over Rosie's face as Jack first approached her. He hugged her tenderly and then sat down on the bench near to where her wheel chair was positioned.

"You are looking so well Rosie, you put me to shame. No one would ever believe you are one year younger than me. You look at least twenty years younger!"

Upon hearing this compliment Rosie's eyes lit up. Jack was her favourite person in the world, her Raison D'etre. To hear a compliment like this made her heart sing.

"What shall we do today?" he asked Rosie.

She merely grinned at him.

Jack now realised that the entire conversation would be dependant on him. The nurses could not remember the last time Rosie had uttered a word. In fact for most of the nurses at the home, Rosie had been a permanent fixture. She had outlived many of the patients and many of the nurses.

The same applied to so many members of her family. Many of them were dead, so many had died in tragic circumstances. Jack had been the bearer of so much of this bad news to Rosie for many years. Often times he thought how much she actually remembered.

He sat down next to Rosie. She pressed her head against him. It was a simple gesture, which signified the close bond between them. He took her hand and caressed it slightly.

"The others send all send their love"

Despite all the family tragedies the family was still enormous and Jack realised it would be futile going through every single-family member and passing on their regards. Even he had trouble keeping up with the number of people in the family.

Shortly after he arrived one of the nurses arrived with a tray. She poured a cup of tea for Rosie. Their was a also a selection of biscuits and cakes on the tray. Rosie chose a chocolate slice and nibbled slowly yet methodically on it.

Jack never ate or drank when he visited his sister. Besides the nurse only ever brought one cup of tea, on the assumption that only Rosie would drink it.

Jack watched as his sister slowly drank her tea and nibbled away at her biscuit. He still had a raw heartfelt emotion towards his sister and felt deep remorse that he had neglected her for so long.

After the operation that had incapacitated her mentally and physically in the forties, Rosie was sent away. When Jack and his brothers and sisters questioned her absence the standard reply was that Rosie was much happier where she was and that seeing any other member of the family would upset her immensely.

Jack had gone along with this myth for over twenty years. But then a surge of guilt overcame him and he became a regular visitor to Rosie. He never missed a visit every Friday afternoon.

"A lot has happened since I was reunited with you Rosie"

Jack found moments like this difficult. It was a painful exercise to recollect all the tragedies that had afflicted individual members of the family. It was unfair; he thought to himself, that their family had suffered so much.

He then looked at Rosie. She was oblivious to all of the tragedy. Jack had lost his son only a short while ago. However it was pointless informing Rosie. At least with her brothers and sisters she had a vague recollection of who they were. She had never met his son.

He would have liked to have brought his daughter with him to visit Rosie. However he was aware that Rosie preferred just to have one visitor at a time. He respected her views on this matter.

"What have you been doing this week Rosie? Have you been to Mass? Do you remember how beautifully you sang when you were a little girl?"

Jack asked the same questions at every visit. It comforted Rosie. He could sense that by her peaceful demeanour. She sat looking so content whenever he came to visit. It pleased him but also disturbed him.

In a way these weekly visits to Rosie helped Jack purge some of the guilt he personally felt at the way the family had treated her over the years. He had not felt remorse at the time of the operation. Instead he attempted to lock the memory of Rosie away, shut her out of his mind completely. For many years this tactic had worked, or he thought it had worked. However the denial could not go on. As much as he loved Rosie, he also knew that these weekly visits were a form of penitence, a ritual that would have to be observed until the day she died.