IN MAPLE SHADE

238 In Maple Shade - Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The temperate gentle breeze whispered through the lowest branches of the sugar maple suspended a mere six feet above the thin Kentucky Blue Grass which was showing signs of significant foot traffic. The fifty feet of circular shade covered us like the hand of the Almighty covers His children, and provided a relaxed atmosphere for our Indian-summer family conference. We sat there in the three weathered lawn chairs lazily gazing across the fields adorned in the lavish richness of green bushes laden with soy beans and, in the distance, the gentle waving of yellowing tassels atop a tall stand of corn much like plumes of feathers on a peacock. The conversation emanating from Cynthia’s uncle was slow and sectioned by pauses as though taking time to remember what was just said and planning ahead for just what needs to be said to finish his thought. We listened as he expressed his bewilderment at why he was so lonely since losing his mate and his sadness at his inability to recall the names of the people who had extended care to him in his recent five-month lodging at the nursing home where he now is only able to relate who did what by how fat or thin they were. We were amused. Dementia has erased his ability to recall the names of the people across the street, but he was fully aware that “every-other-week there were two different guys who showed up to cut the lawn, one was real fat and one was real skinny except for the one week in there where the skinny guy did not show up and the fat guy did the lawn two weeks in a row”. He gets his own breakfast but the daughter-in-law comes by to make him lunch and his son comes by "of an evening to put in his eye drops and make him (his) supper." At 92, he reminds me how similarly we enter and leave this world – we can only relate things by size and shapes, fat and thin, and are dependent upon others for nourishment and care. The bell curve of life for Virgil is on its downward slope now and today’s visit warmed my soul, even though the feebleness of his frame betrays the brutality of the aging process. This is something that every one of us shall face if life runs its normal course, and a smile sneaks upon my face as I realize that, in some ways, the process is creeping up on me even as I sit under the shade of a sugar maple with Virgil.

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