Adding Dimension
“Bella was blind, ya know,” my grandmother said. I knew Bella was blind. In fact, I was pretty sure I knew every Fred-and-Bella story there was to know. But who was I to stop a ninety-four year old from reminiscing about her younger years and the people in them? Here she was, mostly wheelchair bound in a nursing home with her wits fully intact surrounded by very few other intact wits. She could retell any story she pleased. She leaned back in her chair, folding her shaky hands in her lap. Her hair had just been permed, and the curls were the same short style they’d been when I was a child. Except for the fact that it was now white, her hair looked exactly the same in the forty-year-old picture of her and my grandfather that hung on the wall behind her. I sat on her low bed, facing her, and scanned the other family pictures she’d hung. Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren; her whole life in just a few square feet, frozen paper images held to the wall with tacks and ta