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Creative Writing - Doris Taylor My Sassy As I walked briskly towards the nurse’s station the clock struck 7 A.M. The call bells were ringing insistently up and down the hallway. The night nurse threw up her arms in the air and resignedly said, “gosh, this must be a full moon!” Those bells have been going all night. Thank God! I am going home to sleep. Good luck ladies.” Quickly, and calmly I answered the bells, but as I entered room 74w, I heard a shrill, commanding voice yelling, “Doris, what the hell took you so long to get here? I need the darn bedpan now, I have been calling and ringing the bell for over an hour.” Smiling, I approached the bed where my favorite patient Ms. Sassy was. An eighty-year old frail, petite woman from North Carolina, lay among the covers. “Ms. Sassy, what can I do for you?” I asked. “Never mind that” she said, “I need to use the bed pan right now! Also, pass me my brush and dentures” (which she did not own). “You darn Jamaicans are so slow, acting like you all know everything.” Ms. Sassy has two brothers and two sisters. She worked as a seamstress at the former G. Fox store in downtown Hartford for many years. She is still an active member of Shiloh Baptist Church. As a young and vibrant woman she loved to go dancing, and drank red wine. Sassy is always into everyone’s business, whether you are talking to her or not. She knows everything that goes on in the nursing home. Sassy is very moody and particular about her food, especially her orange juice. She demands to have only boxed orange juice, because orange juice in a glass is just garbage. She can be the sweetest, little person one minute, and very feisty and rude the next minute. Every time I look at her she reminds me of the Geico commercial. She wears bifocal glasses and her eyes appear very big and bold. Her mouth is as sharp as a razor blade, and hot as a scotch bonnet pepper, even though she does not have any teeth in her mouth. She cannot speak clearly, but the few words that come out of her mouth would cut right through you and burn like pepper. She swears at you and calls you nasty names. If you don’t know her you might get upset. It takes a person with a sense of humor, understanding, a big heart, and patience to cope with Ms. Sassy. I know she likes me, because during our last strike at the nursing home, when the strike was over and I returned to work, the nurses, nursing assistant, and the residents told me Miss Sassy kept asking for me, and she was even crying. She became very depressed and would not eat. Her condition became life threatening and she had to be hospitalized. The morning I reported back to work I went to her room. She was so happy to see me at that moment, she was speechless. Finally, she shouted, “Doris, come over here and give me a big hug. Do not leave so long again.” She opened her humongous bag and gave me a picture of herself signed “To my best C.N.A. Doris Taylor, from Sassy.” Even though she fights and curses me, I know she likes me very much, and I feel the same way about her. I like her because she is spunky, and I love to look and listen to her even if she has an over-active mouth. She is not only sassy, but she is cute as a button.
By Doris Taylor
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