Saturday, September 5, 2020

Stories from the Resthome (1 of 2): A story of someone's birth.

The other week at the resthome, the one resident who's a retired music professor shared that he was born a few days after the stock market crash back in '29.

He said his parents just weren't sure what to do since it was a horrible time to bring a child into the world, and they hung on as best they could for a number of years, but it was hard times.

He said that when he was 4, the family lost their house up in [a major Midwestern college town], and they had to move to a small third floor apartment in this brick building. His father was a tailor and had just worked for years, he said, and then one day it was just gone, the house that they had bought and had lived in.

Me and the one resident who I have a running joke with were sitting with him, and we just shook our heads and were like, "Wow," and he confirmed that losing the house was one of his earliest childhood memories.

I also pursed my lips and was like, "That's the worst post-partum depression story that I've ever heard."

The joke fell a little flat, though they didn't seem to be angry. I'm not sure they entirely got the reference the first time that I said it.

I need to be more careful with my jokes, sometimes.

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