On Your Feet

As I was saying before, life's roads go in unexpected directions. It's a measure of our quality how we handle that. My ex still complains that she's living a life she did not expect, but that will diminish as she finds her way along. My mom is disappointed at 83 to have spent so many years, especially these latter ones, single, but she accepts that the choices made were hers. I just spent an hour and a half with an old lady who's essentially broke, but she seems cheerful, and I really laud her attitude.

She was married to my dad for eight years, ending in 1976. Her four children got his attention when I did not. I've often counted her among the less helpful influences in my life because of the essential disrespect for males she unintentionally implanted in the local teenagers -- her daughters (affecting their relationships with men) and me (affecting my relationship with myself). But all that was ages ago. All I know today is she called me to fix her bed.

It's sad but I'm all she knows to do stuff like that. Her son broke it off with her years ago. Her daughters live far and wide. Her second ex-husband (my dad) is nearly an invalid. I live nearby. And honestly, I like being helpful. She thought it would be a horrible job: the slats were falling out from under the box. Of course it took all of five minutes to fix, and I vacuumed the carpet under her bed to boot. Same trip, her friend, an even littler old lady hobbling from wheelchair to cane to doorframe, needed her mattress flipped. What, ho! and done. She wanted to pay me. As if.

We had a nice chat, and not about the old days. She's a little frustrated because just last May she did a 10k walk for some fundraiser or other down in the Bay Area or somewhere, but now, due to a mild stroke, she can't walk well and has difficulty speaking. She really doesn't sound much worse to me, but I think she is working very hard at it. She is also determined to walk and walk and get her walkin' health back. I think she will, too. She doesn't own a TV, stays off Facebook (all her friends are on it), reads, walks at 5:30 every morning, and (when I see her anyway) maintains such a cheerful and well-spoken demeanor I can't imagine anything really taking her down.

She wanted to show pictures of her bike ride -- one hundred miles a day down to L.A., though she took a detour to Ventura where she grew up -- but couldn't find them. I don't know when that was but it couldn't have been long ago.

It seems all the old people I know made mistakes (somewhat big ones) at various points in their lives, but they're largely for naught for those who have learned to live with grace. Not necessarily gracefully -- but with the élan that comes with taking responsibility, and blaming no one else. We can learn this.

And I thought I wasn't going to write anymore till after the thing.