Standing in the hall outside the patient’s room at the long-term care facility, I heard her pleading: “Could someone help?”
“Can I get someone for you?” I asked, poking my head in her door.
“Oh yes, thank you,” she said before looking at me, as if my voice itself were that of an angel.
I returned from the nurse’s station with a message: “The nurse asked you to please be patient with her. She’ll be here soon.”
“Patient?” the resident said with a smile, “I have to be patient; I’m 102.”
We simultaneously broke into a laugh, and so I asked permission to step inside her room.
“You look amazing,” I declared, looking at her. I was only being truthful. She had a clear, clean (although aged) complexion, a broad smile, and bright eyes that had a way of erasing years from her physiognomy. I’m not one to guess a lady’s age, but I would have estimated her between 80 and 85 and no older than 90. Maybe it was her grin and the chuckle with which she punctuated her comments that gave me the impression that she was still vigorous and vital in her evening years.
“You seem younger than 102,” I said, smiling back at her. “What’s your secret?”
“MY secret,” she emphasized, underscoring her words with that smile and snicker. “YOU are the one who has the secret.”
“I’m the one who has the secret?” I thought.
What did she mean? Was she turning my question back on me, forcing me to look at my life? I quickly checked myself: Am I making lifestyle choices that would lend to my breaking the 100-year barrier? What about my diet? Did it have too much sugar? Was I exercising as I should? And what about the recommended amount of rest for a male my age? Am I getting my 7-8 hours of sleep a night?
And then, what about the interior life: Am I stressing myself needlessly? What about quiet time and meditation? I mustn’t let those unseen disciplines slide. Resentments? Getting outside myself? What about the fears and worries that can plague the soul? Am I being true to myself?
What about NOW? Am I enjoying the years, the months, the days, the hours, the moments that have been granted me like precious gifts? Am I being present in this moment? Or am I living in yesterday or projecting negativity into a tomorrow that’s not here yet?
What about the small stuff? After all, it’s the little things have turned out to be the big things: the sun bursting forth, announcing the dawn of a new day; giggling with one of my grandchildren; rubbing my dog’s tummy while he rolls in the grass; the Cardinal alighting in my back porch; hugging my wife first thing each morning.
In short: Am I living, laughing, and loving my way to longevity?
But then, perhaps she didn’t mean that at all. Perhaps, her question was her way of complimenting me for offering to assist her in finding a nurse? Maybe it was only that. And if so, was I sensitive to others who may not be 102 but need help in life? The people who can but won’t, the ones who are stuck, are more challenging to help because, and unlike my 102-year-old acquaintance, don’t smile or laugh but gripe and complain, requiring more attention than I care to give.
Or was my 102-year-old friend simply making conversation, not knowing what she was saying, repeating something someone had said to her.
Rifling through these questions, I looked again into my friend’s eyes. Why not ask her what she meant?
“What do you mean, ‘I’m the one with the secret?'”
With eyes ablaze, she took a breath to answer. Then the Calvary arrived. The nurse entered the room, bellowing her arrival, “I’m here, honey.”
And the 102-year young lady turned to her helper, smiling me into invisibility, as I faded out of the room.
And walking down the hall, alone with myself, my new friend had gifted me with plenty of questions to ponder.