There isn’t much to say
The deep ache in knuckle and knee joints
The abyss of aging
Is this how it begins?
The decline
Once so fit peddling uphill with two kids in a burley
Hiking for hours in the forest or along the beach
Now, not sure the knees will support the weight rising off the toilet
Ah the humility
Ancestral genes in a premordial soup
a molded boot for a misshapen foot with a contracted arch
remnants of a 1935 polio bout
Great Grandma applied hot and cold compresses to mother’s
legs throughout the night
Pulling out all the stops to rescue her sweet 9 year old Joey from paralysis
By morning it had set in with its crippling grip
“Get up and walk little one”, she implored banking on her belief in Mary Baker Eddy’s metaphysical, Christian Science that all illness is a manifestation of the mind and as such can be overcome by the mind
“I can’t Gram, it hurts”,
“Now, now Joyce get up and walk.”
Raised to obey and follow instructions
Mom struggled but stood up
Over time she learned to climb trees again
grew into her teens,
wore high heels,
birthed 7 kids over 19 years
aged
In her mid 50’s she fell down the basement steps heading down to get the laundry like she had done a million times before and broke that foot.
The young doctors wanted to operate never having seen such a deformity in actuality.
50/50 chance of healing better than before
Or being crippled and unable to use the foot anymore
Mom opted for a cast
She banked on that healing power of the mind though she left behind the religion thirty years prior
Roman prayer was her guide now
Her foot healed but required a molded boot specially made by an artist of sorts
Her late 50’s were spent caring for Dad as he succumbed to emphysema due to a filter less Camel habit
from the time he was 13
He took up smoking to calm the nerves when his dad was dying in the late 1930s
the Tobacco operating on the pleasure receptors in the brain
Mom visited me on the West coast every year near the end escaping the frigid Connecticut winters and it seems like she saw every apartment or room I moved to over the three years I was in the Bay Area
Dad died the night of a blizzard after being rushed to the hospital with two of my brothers standing vigil Mom returned by train from my place in San Francisco the following morning as the oldest met her on the tracks to break the news
Widowed by 59
Mom kicked around New England for a few years and then moved west near me
Oregon was good for us
It made us strong and bold
We developed grit
The coast healed her heart
I met my loving husband in the valley
He finished his graduate work and took a position in Idaho and I followed reasoning the archaeology would be just as interesting there
We married and raised a daughter but returned to Oregon to have a son
We wanted to have our kids grow up with a grandma close by Mom became their hero so unlike me
So all forgiving and wise
Mom loved the visits but her body grew round and her foot weakened by the fall years before ached when she walked
Taking it slow but never giving up
Our long neighborhood walks were out
In her 70’s she camped in Glacier Park with her two youngest on the banks of a river and was whimpering in the night with dreams of coyotes nibbling at her toes
She camped along the Oregon coast with her grand children
She traveled with the snow birds back and forth to San Diego for years until the fires came and she refused to evacuate
Home bound and choking on smoke for weeks she was ecstatic when they lifted the shelter in place orders and escaped to the wet and verdant Gem of the Oregon Coast
By 80 she was settled
Everything a bit harder with the arthritis
Chopping wood for her sole heat source in the 50 year old un-insulated converted fishing cabin
Slowing down, crippling up after sitting too long, aches and pains
Mom joked that a century earlier her great grandmother Hannah, died at the chopping block
Irony and history repeating itself made her smile
We assumed the strenuous act of lifting the heavy garage door and chopping fuel for a daily fire helped her live longer
Being self sufficient is a gift albeit potentially isolating
Mom was self actualized and did things her way with a gentle insistence to stay independent She packed a lot of living into her years of solitude
As I draw close to 60 I know the warning signs of aging I feel the pains in my unblemished hands and wonder when they will look all gnarled and misshapen as hers did in the end
Will it start this year?
A bunion on my foot just appeared
I thought only women who wore high heels developed those
from whence did it come?
I don’t recall it being there last summer
I’m slowing down and shifting gears
I’m determined to stay fit and active for many years to come maybe these strong Celtic women and a bit of indigenous ones in my DNA can lead me home
