Case 1 - Isabel

She peeked into dresser drawers, wastebaskets, toilet bowls, anything that might hold something. Her oversized housedress swished as she walked. Her pale blue - green eyes glowed with anticipation, peering, poking.

Feil asks, "What are you looking for, Mrs. Blue?"

"Honey," she smiled, her dentures clicking, "I'm looking for yesterday. I have to untangle the noodles in the mirrors of my mind."

Feil "You're untangling the noodles of your mind? Have you found them?"

"If I found them, I wouldn't be looking, would I?" she whistled, patted Feil on the cheek.

Isabel tugged the drapes, convulsing with glee. A nursing assistant wagged a finger at Isabel, "Leave those drapes alone! That's naughty!"

"I’ll tell my mother on you!" Isabel flashed back, flicking her wrist at the nursing assistant.

"Isabel, you are 88 years old. Your mother would have to be at least 110. Honey, she couldn't be alive."

Isabel shugged, "Well, I know that, and you know that, but my mother doesn't know that and she won't like it one bit when I tweddle her!" I just had a wonderful squakle with my mother and my aunt, and I didn't have the heart to hittle them, It'll hittle them too hard to know they are dead. And ….." Isabel tossed her head, hands on her hips, in a final gesture, " a lot of old people live a lot longer than younger people. So waddle out! Today you say, tomorrow, you're dead!"

Case 2 - June

June Simpson became more of a blamer when she lost her husband. Three years after her husband's death, she tried to shoo away her neighbor's dog and fell and broke her hip. She blamed her neighbor, who had been her friend. "If you had watched that dog, I wouldn't have broken my hip!" she yelled. "It's your fault!"

When her gums decayed, her bridge loosened and she had trouble chewing. She blamed the butcher. "That meat is so tough, only a horse could chew it. Horse meat, that's what you sold me!" The butcher ignored her. Her neighbors avoided her. June, they said, had a loose screw.

June had led a productive, normal life. When things went wrong, she pulled herself together by blaming and then went on with her life. She had been a bookkeeper in a large law office, where she had performed her job with great competence. Before reaching old age, she never had to face many losses simultaneously. As the pains and losses of old age grew, she found herself unable to survive. Her only way of living through hard times was to blame. She lost her friends and died alone.