"You know, there are different kinds of bubbles in the world."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. For instance, there are the bubbles I wash the dishes with. Sometimes I even taste that soapy taste and I have to rinse out my mouth. And then there's quite a different kind of bubble from the mouth of a baby. It has always fascinated me."
"Bubbles or babies?" I asked.
"Both," Aunt Shula answered. "But lately, I've been more focused on bubbles. You know, there are even bubbles within different kinds of bubbles if you watch closely. Very early this morning, when I changed my tichel, I decided to wash the one that I had been wearing. I put the plug in the drain hole and turned on the water. Did you know that just plain water makes bubbles? Clear bubbles of all different sizes that jump up and float away and pop. And I also noticed that each bubble had a white dot in it."
"That was probably the reflection of the lights."
Aunt Shula shifted in the bed with effort and shielded her eyes from the light. "Well, I guess these hospital lights do strange things."
She lay still for a few moments. I watched her pale features, not quite knowing what to do. Maybe she needs quiet right now. Not that the hospital is quiet, what with the metal trolleys banging their way down the corridor, the beeping of monitors from many of the rooms and the hushed conversations that rise to a crescendo so very quickly. Should I talk? What is there for me to talk about?
I didn't have to wonder long. She smiled at me wanly. "Don't pay any attention to me," she said softly. "I have bubbles on my brain."
I pondered if bubbles might be better than what she really had. I swooshed the grape soda in the glass in my hand, watching the shiny gas bubbles, not unlike tiny silver balls rising through the dark liquid and holding on tightly to the edges of the cup. Tilting the cup to the side, I watched the small bubbles clinging for those extra few seconds before they finally burst, leaving slightly purple streaks on the sides. I put the glass onto the edge of the sink, reached over, put the plug in the sink, and turned on the faucet. The water flowed down straight and cool. Wiping a drop from Aunt Shula's shampoo bottle, I put my finger under the stream of water. Together, we watched as the sink filled up with bubbles.
"They reflect so many colors," she said with awe. It amazed me to see a fifty-two-year-old with the fascination for life that I see on the face of a little child.
Quickly the sink filled up with countless bubbles. Some spilled over the edge of the sink, some floated tenuously into the air, gently bursting into miniscule droplets of soap which fell to the floor. One larger bubble floated up higher than the rest. Aunt Shula and I both turned our faces up as it rose closer to the ceiling.
Aunt Shula was right. The colors! The beautiful pinks, greens, purples, and yellows that stretched and changed with the bubble's movements. Neither of us noticed the noise of the hospital around us. That single rainbow-colored bubble had caught our full attention. Higher and higher it floated. We watched it getting closer to the lightbulb and slowly it dipped, lower and lower. It wavered in one spot, not moving at all, radiant in its beauty. Suddenly, the air conditioner turned on and this magical bubble rose again. As it drew closer to the light, it burst into a multitude of colored droplets which then speckled the floor.
I hadn't even realized that I was holding my breath. I turned off the faucet and began to breathe again. "I used to love blowing bubbles when I was a child," I said. "All of us children would compete to see who could blow the largest ones."
Aunt Shula sat up a bit and said, "As a child, I saw a man at a carnival once blowing the strangest shaped bubbles. I remember that I wanted to tie strings around them like balloons and take them home with me." She looked at me and smiled. "My life is a rather strangely shaped bubble, isn't it?"
I felt such a strong surge of love towards Aunt Shula at that moment. "Don't we all have stangely shaped life bubbles?" I asked. "Don't we all have beautiful, light-filled neshomos not unlike delicate bubbles?"
Aunt Shula nodded and looked past me. I watched her pale blue eyes flecked with dancing green specks. I was so glad that the dance was still in them. She continued, "There are tight little white bubbles whenever I lather Surale's hair and Surale puts some on her chin and says that she has a beard." Some color shadowed pinkly on Aunt Shula's cheeks. "And the time my father and I went to the Jordan Park on a sunny February day. We didn't see any other person there as we sat by the translucent green water and watched the bubbles dancing on top of the fast flowing river sailing past us until they went around a bend where I couldn't see them anymore."
Aunt Shula closed her eyes and rested. Soon my cousin stepped into the room to stay for the afternoon. Aunt Shula was alseep. I waved goodbye soundlessly, tiptoed out, went home and thought of bubbles for the rest of the day.
It was my turn that night to stay with Aunt Shula. I would stay awake the whole night to help her with anything that she might need. I was tired but it didn't matter. I couldn't think of anyone I would rather be with. By midnight I had been watching her sleep rhythmically for a full two hours. My eyelids were getting heavy. So very heavy. "If I push the chair next to the wall, I can lean my head against the wall and just rest my eyes for a few minutes," I told myself, silently lifting up the heavy hospital chair and moving it. "Just for a few minutes."
Aunt Shula stopped breathing in the middle of the night. No one knows exactly when. All of us in the family were so shocked. So horrified. The hosptial staff as well. The doctors thought that she would survive longer. Aunt Shula -- so quiet, so uncomplaining. Just three days before she had tried to walk to the bathroom by herself so as not to bother the nurses. She had fallen and had hurt her back. The additional pain didn't touch the pure smile that adorned her face as usual.
Somehow it seemed appropriate to have spoken at such length about bubbles. Her lightweight and delicate essence didn't burst but rather, the bubble of her soul is just reflecting more and more radiant colors as it rises and rises...
