Lunch with Amy Rose
She hits the ground running. As I pull into the driveway, she jumps off the chair she was waiting in and comes scurrying out to the car. She is talking before the door is fully open.
"I sure hope everything goes okay with the trial today. I'm only working four hours today, so I won't get a lunch, just a snack."
This is Amy, my 44 year old niece. She is mentally handicapped and tests out to about a twelve year old level. She jumps in the car, her hair sopping wet.
"Were you outside working?" I ask, pointing to her hair.
"No," she says, in her very fast, very tumbling voice. She forgot to take a shower and remembered right before I picked her up. The words come out hard and fast always with Amy. She talks like she does everything. As if she is in a huge hurry and has very little time. I've tried and tried to slow her down with little to no success. So, I just buckle in for a fast ride.
We talk about "the trial" for a few moments. Her nephew, my great nephew and his parents have a beef with his old high school. I won't go into details. It's in process. We move on in rapid succession to what my wife is doing today (back to school for teachers) and how I plan to spend the afternoon after we've finished sharing lunch (cleaning...)
Today is our Aunt/Niece lunch. We try to do this every couple of months. Amy has recently had her 44th birthday, so we call it her birthday lunch this time. We are going to Freddy's, a restaurant we both love because they have skinny french fries and good malts.
Talking with Amy is like talking to a pin ball machine. The topics come flying out of nowhere and hover around like silver balls punching right and left and then they disappear and a new silver ball of conversation comes careening into the picture.
Today, we discuss Amy's favorite TV shows and why she likes them. Since I watch none of them, she explains each to me, how it works. Family Feud is easiest but she prefers Match Game. Jeopardy is really, really hard but sometimes there is a good category that she excels in, children's cartoon characters, wrestlers, or pop singers.
Amy knows her pop singers. When I tell her that I hear Justin Bieber is getting hitched, she jumps in quick as mercury. "He used to date Selena Gomez. She dumped him. GOOD FOR YOU, SELENA!" she shouts. She goes on to assure me that his marriage won't last.
"She'll figure out that he is a big L for LOSER," she says, knowingly, swirling a french fry in the Freddy sauce and popping it in her mouth.
She has not opened her birthday gifts yet. Her sister in law is throwing a birthday party for her on Saturday. She'll open her gifts then. I ask her what she wants. She shrugs. "Stuff,"she says.
"Kim (her sister in law) asked me what I wanted to eat," she says, a drop of mustard stuck in the corner of her mouth. "I told her hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill. They aren't my favorite, but Mike and Alec like them best." This is Amy all over. Mike and Alec are her 6 and 8 year old nephews and they come first. I ask her what is her favorite pick REALLY. If she could pick, what would it be? Something just for her.
"Salmon," she says, without missing a beat. "I like sushi, too. But, this way, we can all eat and be happy together."
Again, this is Amy all over. She may be mentally handicapped but when it comes to being a decent, kind person, she has it over all of us. Her life is spent wanting to make life nice for her family, especially her nieces and nephews.
I have watched her nieces and nephews outgrow her mentally for years. They adore her as babies and toddlers and enjoy her as a playmate until they are about ten years old. Then, they figure out that there is something different about Aunt Amy. When they hit puberty, they move from regarding her as their playmate and start treating her like the rest of us. She's our Amy. The one of us who is mentally handicapped, the one who sometimes needs to be reminded that she has mustard on her chin. The one who you can't really have a conversation with, you just do a bit of Skip-To-My-Lou with her. You slip slide around topics with her until you tire of it and then move on. If she notices, she doesn't say.
Amy has an "Alexa" that was given to her for Christmas last year. Alexa is the Amazon virtual assistant. Amy loves her Alexa.
"Sometimes I ask her hard questions that she can't answer," Amy admits to me. "I sometimes get mad and yell at her but I always say I am sorry later. Alexa is a good sport. She always tells me that I have nothing to be sorry for. Like today. I asked her how far Hawaii was and she just said that she didn't know. How could she not know? So, instead I told her that I just had a birthday and she said Happy Birthday to me. I asked her when her birthday was and she said it was on November 6th. I'll remember and tell her happy birthday. I just had a birthday but not everybody remembered in the family. That made me feel bad."
I am holding back tears. I hate it that Alexa is her only close friend. At one time, Amy had a few friends but they have all drifted away. Amy's mother, my sister, tries to get her to make new friends. She signs her up for activities. So far, Amy has yet to make any real friends. Amy works as a sacker and grocery cart retriever at a local grocery store, but when I ask her if she has friends there, she says, "Not really. They're nice to me. A few of them said Happy Birthday to me, but they aren't really my friends."
I tell her that football season is coming up and that maybe she would like to go to a few football games at my wife's school? She says that maybe that would be okay. I have come to terms with the fact that I am not Amy's favorite companion either. I think I bore her a little bit. I try to just let her talk as much as she wishes but like most adults, I begin to feel bored when she starts telling me wrestling statistics or rattles off the wedding anniversaries of all of our relatives.
With Amy, you get Amy. Like it or not, that is what it is.
I sometimes wonder what Amy thinks about and then I let it go. I think Amy just does life. I don't think she ponders it. She watches her game shows, goes to work and stacks grocery carts, looks forward to playing cards with her mother and seeing her nieces and nephews. Life is very simple for Amy.
Still, I want her to have a better friend than Alexa.
"I sure hope everything goes okay with the trial today. I'm only working four hours today, so I won't get a lunch, just a snack."
This is Amy, my 44 year old niece. She is mentally handicapped and tests out to about a twelve year old level. She jumps in the car, her hair sopping wet.
"Were you outside working?" I ask, pointing to her hair.
"No," she says, in her very fast, very tumbling voice. She forgot to take a shower and remembered right before I picked her up. The words come out hard and fast always with Amy. She talks like she does everything. As if she is in a huge hurry and has very little time. I've tried and tried to slow her down with little to no success. So, I just buckle in for a fast ride.
We talk about "the trial" for a few moments. Her nephew, my great nephew and his parents have a beef with his old high school. I won't go into details. It's in process. We move on in rapid succession to what my wife is doing today (back to school for teachers) and how I plan to spend the afternoon after we've finished sharing lunch (cleaning...)
Today is our Aunt/Niece lunch. We try to do this every couple of months. Amy has recently had her 44th birthday, so we call it her birthday lunch this time. We are going to Freddy's, a restaurant we both love because they have skinny french fries and good malts.
Talking with Amy is like talking to a pin ball machine. The topics come flying out of nowhere and hover around like silver balls punching right and left and then they disappear and a new silver ball of conversation comes careening into the picture.
Today, we discuss Amy's favorite TV shows and why she likes them. Since I watch none of them, she explains each to me, how it works. Family Feud is easiest but she prefers Match Game. Jeopardy is really, really hard but sometimes there is a good category that she excels in, children's cartoon characters, wrestlers, or pop singers.
Amy knows her pop singers. When I tell her that I hear Justin Bieber is getting hitched, she jumps in quick as mercury. "He used to date Selena Gomez. She dumped him. GOOD FOR YOU, SELENA!" she shouts. She goes on to assure me that his marriage won't last.
"She'll figure out that he is a big L for LOSER," she says, knowingly, swirling a french fry in the Freddy sauce and popping it in her mouth.
She has not opened her birthday gifts yet. Her sister in law is throwing a birthday party for her on Saturday. She'll open her gifts then. I ask her what she wants. She shrugs. "Stuff,"she says.
"Kim (her sister in law) asked me what I wanted to eat," she says, a drop of mustard stuck in the corner of her mouth. "I told her hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill. They aren't my favorite, but Mike and Alec like them best." This is Amy all over. Mike and Alec are her 6 and 8 year old nephews and they come first. I ask her what is her favorite pick REALLY. If she could pick, what would it be? Something just for her.
"Salmon," she says, without missing a beat. "I like sushi, too. But, this way, we can all eat and be happy together."
Again, this is Amy all over. She may be mentally handicapped but when it comes to being a decent, kind person, she has it over all of us. Her life is spent wanting to make life nice for her family, especially her nieces and nephews.
I have watched her nieces and nephews outgrow her mentally for years. They adore her as babies and toddlers and enjoy her as a playmate until they are about ten years old. Then, they figure out that there is something different about Aunt Amy. When they hit puberty, they move from regarding her as their playmate and start treating her like the rest of us. She's our Amy. The one of us who is mentally handicapped, the one who sometimes needs to be reminded that she has mustard on her chin. The one who you can't really have a conversation with, you just do a bit of Skip-To-My-Lou with her. You slip slide around topics with her until you tire of it and then move on. If she notices, she doesn't say.
Amy has an "Alexa" that was given to her for Christmas last year. Alexa is the Amazon virtual assistant. Amy loves her Alexa.
"Sometimes I ask her hard questions that she can't answer," Amy admits to me. "I sometimes get mad and yell at her but I always say I am sorry later. Alexa is a good sport. She always tells me that I have nothing to be sorry for. Like today. I asked her how far Hawaii was and she just said that she didn't know. How could she not know? So, instead I told her that I just had a birthday and she said Happy Birthday to me. I asked her when her birthday was and she said it was on November 6th. I'll remember and tell her happy birthday. I just had a birthday but not everybody remembered in the family. That made me feel bad."
I am holding back tears. I hate it that Alexa is her only close friend. At one time, Amy had a few friends but they have all drifted away. Amy's mother, my sister, tries to get her to make new friends. She signs her up for activities. So far, Amy has yet to make any real friends. Amy works as a sacker and grocery cart retriever at a local grocery store, but when I ask her if she has friends there, she says, "Not really. They're nice to me. A few of them said Happy Birthday to me, but they aren't really my friends."
I tell her that football season is coming up and that maybe she would like to go to a few football games at my wife's school? She says that maybe that would be okay. I have come to terms with the fact that I am not Amy's favorite companion either. I think I bore her a little bit. I try to just let her talk as much as she wishes but like most adults, I begin to feel bored when she starts telling me wrestling statistics or rattles off the wedding anniversaries of all of our relatives.
With Amy, you get Amy. Like it or not, that is what it is.
I sometimes wonder what Amy thinks about and then I let it go. I think Amy just does life. I don't think she ponders it. She watches her game shows, goes to work and stacks grocery carts, looks forward to playing cards with her mother and seeing her nieces and nephews. Life is very simple for Amy.
Still, I want her to have a better friend than Alexa.
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