Melting
I watched both the RNC and the DNC. The DNC was a much better time.
Feeling hopeful Americans turn away from the rambling anger of Trump. He can’t even call into Fox News to complain about Kamala without accidentally hitting buttons on his phone throughout his conversation. Just beep, beep, beeping away as he talks, completely unaware.
It got me thinking. It reminded me of how people his age often end up in an assisted living facility. I had flashbacks, listening to him, of visiting my great-grandmother in one of those homes. I was a fresh-faced young girl, and that place scared me. It smelled weird. Walking through the automatic glass doors of the entrance, even as a child, felt like approaching an expiration date.
The confused elderly always wanted to touch me, hug me, talk to me – I didn’t understand they were only half living in reality. In that moment, the little blonde girl, with the smooth skin of youth, was their granddaughter. To me, they were frightening.
My cousin and I would timidly avoid all the reaching hands and exclamations of joy. We’d take our place near ol’ grandma nanna, someone I was never close to, honestly. She would yell at the other old people to go away. They’re mine!
She was a shell of a person. Bloated and wrinkled in a wheelchair, time had been unkind. Life had been unkind to her as well, or so I learned. I was never told anything nice about her, actually. At least, I can’t recall anything nice. I didn’t feel this way about all my great-grandparents, but she scared me as much as her environment did. The whole package, her in that place, it was like a threat.
My mom had to bribe me with ice cream to go. It was a summer tradition – we’d fly back to Indy, first we’d go see nanna, and then I’d get a swirl cone that melted in the wet Indiana summer before I could finish it.
I’d count every painful second we spent with her, itching to get away. I’m sure she counted the seconds too, hoping for more.
Trump reminds me of this feeling, of a looming expiration date. Of hoping for more than you get.
He reminds me of the bumbling, confused people inside that home from my childhood. Some were living in their past, unaware of their own current reality. Some didn’t want to let go of the small joy that might come from a family visit. Some sat inside shells of who they used to be. I was too young to remember if they looked happy. I couldn’t imagine being happy to be them.
You can’t hold onto youth forever. We all have our day in the sun. Trump has found himself in the shade, but in his mind, he’s conjuring up a reality that makes sense to himself – and his followers are sitting by his side, eating up whatever he serves.
His next destination won’t be a nursing home. He has his mansions and his staff to look after him. He’ll be able to afford whatever medical care he needs. He’ll never experience the end the way my great-grandmother did. Alone in a place no one wants to visit. Or maybe he will? Time can be unkind in that way for a lot of us.
Still, it makes even less sense for his next stop to be the White House. If he ends up there, it certainly could be his final destination, and do we really want a dying man running the country? Someone who lives in his own fantasy world obsessed with power and strength as his body betrays him?
He’s gonna need to bribe a lot of people with a lot of ice cream to show up for that.
Update: People love ice cream.
