learning how to die

i went to texas for spring break, mostly because my grandparents live in a retirement home in abilene. the retirement home is filled with old people that love to see young people walking around in it. everyday i walked by to my grandparents apartment, i would see these two small old ladies playing rummikub. they always smiled, and once asked if i wanted to play, but i never had time. finally, the day before we were going to leave, i went and played with them. i had played a couple times before, but i didn't remember many of the rules. whenever i asked a question like "so, what's the goal of this game? how do you win?" they would either not say anything, or laugh and say "oh! haha! it's so much fun!" one of the ladies, lorine, had very thick glasses, and burped through out the whole game. these weren't small, lady-like burps. they were enormous frog-like belches. marie, the other lady, acted like they didn't happen, so i decided to also. marie had a hearing aid that she liked to fiddle with. she would turn a knob, and a very high pitched sound would errupt from her vicinity. apparently neither she nor lorine noticed or were bothered by this, but i had a hard time dealing with the sound. after a few minutes of playing, i decided to ask them some questions. i asked marie "so, have you always lived in texas?" she just answered with a laugh "oh no! haha! i was a gypsy! everywhere was home!" none of their responses gave me straight answers, but it was kind of fun that way. it's not everyday i get to play rummikub with old ladies that give me cryptic answers to questions. if you're not familiar with rummikub, you go around in a circle to take turns. lorine always went when it wasn't her turn, and marie seemed to have a short temper with it. "LORINE! it's NOT your TURN!" lorine would answer with a mumble, and five seconds later, both would be in good spirits once again. i spent most of my time with them laughing. it wasn't mean laughing, just laughing because of how out of the ordinary the experience was for me. i've spent a fair amount of time around old people, but they weren't usually like marie and lorine. at about 9:30, it was their bedtime. we said our goodnights, and they told me we could play the next time i came. it was odd, though. usually when someone tells me something like that, i assume it will happen. i don't usually have to worry about whether or not they're going to die in the next six months or so before we can actually do something. and then i thought, who will marie play rummikub with if lorine dies tomorrow? she'll just sit at that table alone, and she won't even have anyone to yell at and ignore their burps.