Short Story: Wisconsin Union Grove Veteran's Home

Between four bare, achromatic walls of Wisconsin Union Grove Veteran’s Home, a middle-aged choir conductor gazed nostalgically out the window of an unfamiliar bedroom. He reached for the ringing telephone, only to find that the entire right side of his body was paralyzed. His nimble organist fingers had twisted themselves into unnatural positions, and his musically inclined tongue failed to produce coherent words. Bottles of pills littered the counter, and an intravenous drip system towered over his pale figure. An unintelligible cry escaped his lips when a nurse entered the room and informed him of the ischemic stroke that had stolen his voice and mobility. Emotions flooded his pores, but the sensation of utter sadness was overpowering. As
he processed the nurse’s words, he physically struggled to find his own. A row of six small cypress trees along the sidewalk was visible through the window, but the man longed for the view from his humble apartment in Brownsville, Texas. Day after day, trapped behind a single glass window that separated him from the outside world, the bedridden patient watched the months collapse into an indistinguishable concept of time. Though he was confined to a bed for the rest of his life, his distinct personality gradually resurfaced. While he eagerly anticipated a visit from one of his five children, the nurses discovered that his effervescent personality would not be bound by age or physical limitations. His intrinsically youthful disposition remained the most prominent facet of his character, and this unfaltering charisma breathed life into the hallways of the nursing home, long after the years had weathered his body. It was no coincidence that the stroke had reduced Jesse Sanchez’s vocabulary to a few selective words of the English language.
Besides the necessary “yes” and “no”, the animated “hey” and the names of his five adult children, the only phase that he could successfully enunciate was “I love you.” Jesse loved those three precious words. They were reserved for the attractive woman who regularly brought him dinner, the speech therapist who praised him through the struggle of pronouncing r’s and n’s, and for the phone calls with his oldest son, who he had not seen for eleven years. Every attempt to string together a mere sentence usually ended up in this comforting phrase. Perhaps the repetition of the words “I love you” was borne from a lifelong desire to hear them back. While typical adults reflect on the _______ something something perfect moments of their childhoods, Jesse’s past only conjured memories of his abusive father and incriminating mother who attributed the fatal drowning of her infant son solely to the four-year old Jesse who had been in the bathtub with him. From the tender age of four, this man grew up believing that he alone took his brother’s life. Despite his troubled past, Jesse strived to cultivate a healthy marriage and successfully raise his four rambunctious sons and daughter. When the erratic nature of his father unexpectedly emerged through his own impulsive actions, Jesse found himself on a plane to Texas, with an intimidating pile of divorce papers.
Several years passed before the man reconnected with his oldest son, and heard his eleven-year old granddaughter’s mere voice for the first time over the phone. He longed to ask her questions and tell her stories, but his tongue could only form those three, simple words, “I love you”. While she timidly whispered them back, his heart flooded with bittersweet ________. (maybe bittersweet emotions of something and something?) That single ordinary phrase, carelessly utterered by thousands of humans across the universe, echoed throughout the nursing home hallways with boisterous, unparalleled passion. Jesse Sanchez gradually began to accept the reality of his surroundings, and as the nurses and caregivers filtered throughout his miniscule bedroom each day, the loneliness faded into a promising sense of hope that the positive course of his life was yet to come. When Jesse received a polaroid camera as a gift for his sixty-fourth birthday, it quickly became his most prized possession. Between impassioned attempts to recreate the melody of an _______ song and frustrated endeavors to communicate his thoughts, his captivating charisma was the most present when he held his camera. Every time a new caregiver entered his bedroom, Jesse insisted that they pose for a picture. The barren walls transformed into a montage of smiling nurses, physicians and doctors, who had all been persuaded to write down their name, and mount it to the wall with exactly two thumbtacks. They attentively followed his hand motions, which specified just how far right or left he desired to place the photograph. When one of the caregivers misunderstood his intentions, Jesse howled a vivacious, teasing “no!”, but when the placement finally matched his expectations, an enthusiastic “yes!”, followed by a repeated “I love you”, erupted from his fragile body. Each morning, Jesse woke to the hundreds of employee’s faces and energetically inserted an Elton John CD at full volume into his boombox. “Tiny Dancer” or “I’m Still Standing” usually poured unapologetically out of room 174, until a nurse knocked on the door and politely asked Jesse to turn down the volume. A stubborn banter typically followed this request, but Jesse ultimately reduced the volume before shouting his three favorite words to the nurse, “I love you!”. Though the completely immobilized resident experienced life from a small nursing home room, the years that weakened his bones and discolored his face had no effect on his unwavering charisma. The men and women who worked in the facility found themselves involuntarily captivated by the lively personality of Jesse Sanchez, and the pictures on the walls multiplied until they covered every inch of open space in sight. Based on ur topic sentence this paragraph should be about the camera so if you can add something in ur cnoclusion sentence to reference that otherwise it seems like your paragraph strays from ur TS. The first time that Jesse’s grandchildren entered the nursing home, the overpowering hospital scent of iodoform greeted their nostrils.
As they opened the last bedroom door on the first floor, tears pooled in the eyes of a man who had decades of living ______ on his face. Though a fresh, white stubble was emerging on his chin and rosacea had settled on his cheeks and nose, Jesse youthfully shouted the three words that (something something something like maybe lost their meaning idk, changed path of his life, never failed to soothe him, some shit, come back make this sound good. ) The former choir conductor clumsily forced a Christmas CD into his boombox, brought the sound to the highest volume, and energetically gestured his left hand to direct the chorale of grandchildren around his bed. Despite his inability to vocalize each word, Jesse belted out each note in sheer delight. When “Jingle Bells” had ended, each child received a dollar bill and a handful of hard caramels. His sprightly eyes illuminated with excitement as he eagerly awaited a reaction for his gifts. One by one, Jesse’s four grandchildren bent over and awkwardly gave the left side of his body a hug. As they pulled away, visible tear droplets were streaming down his face. His emotional personality only intensified when his eleven-year old granddaughter sang the first verse of “Bless the Broken Road” by Rascal Flatts. MAYBE SOMETHING ABOUT THE LYRICS IDK Happiness twinged with melancholia filled his lungs, as
Jesse reflected on the multitude of family holidays, baptisms, weddings, and family parties that had transpired in his absence. Repeated “I love you’s” reverberated across the room, and as the voices of his four grandchildren, oldest son and daughter-in-law echoed them back, Jesse Sanchez found himself in pure comfort for the first time in decades. Pictures of his grandchildren in silver frames gradually consumed his once desolate walls, until they were crowded with the thousands of beaming faces that made his heart overflow with happiness. The name Jesse means gift in Hebrew. It is only fitting that my grandfather acquired a name that perfectly described his existence. Though a stroke limited almost every aspect of his physical ability, Jesse’s uncontainable charisma miraculously remained throughout the years. His unrelentingly youthful spirit forever transformed the lives of the hundreds of people who dared to step beyond the colorless hallways of Union Grove Veteran’s Home and into the vibrant life of Jesse Sanchez. While these people desired to live for his seemingly unconditional love, Jesse fell in love with the desire to live. From a time where he once suppressed loneliness beneath the soulful melodies of a John Denver song, happiness now radiated from every “I love you”, each smiling polaroid photograph on the wall, and the plaque on his door that read “Most Outgoing Personality”. Perhaps this man was named Jesse because