Before the Final Calm

It's actually been almost warm today, nearly reached freezing under a pale cloudy sky. Most sidewalks have been treated in the past few days, or at least had the ice sheets broken, and the moderating temperatures have caused the remaining ice to soften and break up on its concrete bed. The weather calls for serious snow tonight, so stay-at-home or work-from-home people, me among them, have been trying to scrape off that last residue before it settles back beneath a freezing blanket of white.

After I finish I go inside to cup my freezing hands around some hot coffee. I glance out the window to see my 90-year-old neighbor from across the street, a widower of about three years now, outside, walking carefully along his sidewalk, using a pole in each hand as a sort of cane. Not so bright to be outside in this weather at his age, I thought, but if he insists on doing it, at least he is using supports. After all, though he is still as sharp as he's been in the 15 or so years I've known him, he has worsening balance issues and vision issues, and not long ago took a nasty fall in his bathroom after he passed out.

I watch him briefly, and consider going over and talking with him; I haven't seen him much since the cold spell kicked in. Then I see something else. He is not using those poles as canes-- one is an ice-chopper, the other is a snow shovel. He's breaking and shoveling the ice, like he's no doubt done each of the 40 or so years he's lived there. I can't help think, "the old fool." After all, he has three sons in easy driving distance and in fact one was over there the day before trying to chop up the ice before giving it up as a bad job, since the thaw had not yet set in.

I'm not sure what to do. Part of me wants to insist on helping, another part wants to simply remind him that it's not really a wise thing to be doing, that back when he was a practicing physician he would have read the riot act to any geriatric patient of his who insisted on doing such things; he would have told the patient it's simply not worth it, no matter how much it seemed like a doable idea, no matter how strong the urge.

But I hold back. I don't want to impose my concerns onto his pride. He's still living, alone, in that 4-bedroom, 2-story, house by choice. His kids want him to move into some sort of retirement community, but he refuses to allow the finality that would bring. He wants to retain his independence, more importantly, his sense of independence, as long as he can. I'm not where he is yet by any means, but I'm getting to the point where I understand the distinction between the abstraction of accepting aging, and the concrete realization that this is not some idea of someone getting old and liking it, this is me getting old and I don't like it, don't want to give in to it.

So I stay indoors and let him be. Soon my daily life intervenes and I have to turn away from the window. By the time I get back he's no longer out there, his garage door is closed, and I can see him, through the picture window, shuffling slowly across his living room. The sidewalk is mostly clear, save for a few piles of ice chips that a younger man would have thrown over the snowbank and onto the street. Not a bad job, though.

About as good as mine. And I realize how tightly I, too, hold onto this illusion of invincibility, this dream that I hold the key, that so long as I refuse to give in, I don't have to.

But we both know better. Our respective times will come, his, I selfishly hope, sooner than mine.