The Elderly

     I walked out of the regular office building, stopping on the front steps to breath and shake off work. Down the three steps, down the sidewalk to my left was a lady wearing a bright red water coat, walking with a distinctive gait. Her back was bent, as usual, and her short white hair was covered with a handkerchief, as it always was when she was outside. The only time I'd seen her without it was when we had a fire drill, and Betty and I had to help her reach the point where we were supposed to wait. Her mind was alert, her attitude bright, but she leaned far to her left with every step, a gait almost reaching a limp. Her hip or her side, none of us were sure which, cause her pain, and her body often seems to be falling apart. MaryAnne, she is the sweetest person I had ever known.
    Tuesday through Thursday, the days she worked, she'd go through the row of cubicles and say "good morning" to all the friends she had there, from the boss to the girl who worked a few hours a day before going home to her new baby. Anytime I wasn't on the phone when she came, I'd get up and give her a hug. She'd always tell me that I was so precious, that Jesus's light shined brightly in me. I smiled when she said it, since I didn't have the words to tell her she was only seeing her light reflected. I hugged her differently than anyone else, for something about her made me gentle, but holding tight. She'd told me I had that light ever since I tried to anonymously leave ten dollars so a check of hers wouldn't bounce at the bank. She asked every person on the floor who left it, till she found out. I often try to forget about that time, but it has strengthened a friendship that I cherish.
     She is the kind of person who shames every malicious thought, every bit of gossip that can hurt, even every complaint about my workday. Not, however, because she'd be horrified if I spoke it, but because she'd never even assume I could. There is something about that trust that shamed every careless joke, every resentful murmur.
    She loves food. I eat with her and several other ladies, most over seventy. I often wonder how I look, sitting there, a girl of twenty-three, eating with so many older than me. I hear so many different things during those lunch conversations. One woman did things I would never have dreamed of doing, from marrying her husband and moving down to Florida with all their stuff in their car, a few hundred dollars, and no house waiting for them. One has a child's heart still, and makes me laugh so often. One has the opinions of a general and an absolute unconsciousness of social opinions. She never means to offend, but can scarcely keep from doing so--yet is so precious, for there is none of the pretense or sickening, malicious politeness that I've seen other places. MaryAnne, however, makes the younger ones of us laugh, as never a meal goes by that she does not comment on the food she is eating, the food she had last night, the food she plans to have that night. One week she was so happy, her children had sent her gift cards to Red Lobster and another nice restaurant, places she couldn't afford to eat at regularly. One of my coworkers pointed out that it's one of the few things left MaryAnne can enjoy. And she enjoys it more than I enjoy almost anything I can do.
    She's over seventy, perhaps over eighty, and working still. She's part of a program that calls out to churches, advertising our company. I look at her and wonder. I've thought about the elderly a lot, since these lunches. I have struggled to walk some of them through doing the computer work; those calls can last forty minutes to do a simple thing. So I laugh at the jokes about the elderly using computers, but uneasily I remember MaryAnne, and the others I eat with. Because just today I worked with an elderly lady (only a twenty minute call, but on an average of two minutes a call, that's long), and while she was excessively, extremely, unbelievably cautious when it came to doing something like hitting "next" if she hadn't done so before, if I asked her to go back to page we'd been on she was there almost before I was. I realized that her caution came doing something new, an uncertainty that made her very careful to defend her dignity. Because America doesn't give much dignity to the elderly, does it? They cannot do things quickly, they often cannot take care of themselves, they're set in their ways, without hope of much more dreaming or ambition, they can only give a little of the efficiency and results our culture prizes. And they don't often have social graces that help to do other things. So we laugh at them, take care of them, and treat them with a brisk efficiency that gets things done and deals with everyone and leaves them very little choice, respect, or power in their lives or ours. Because, of course we know better, and can get it--whatever "it" may be--done faster. So the old guard what dignity they have by refusing to be fools to the greatest extent they can.
      I am guilty of that careless arrogance. I cannot say I am exempt from it, even knowing MaryAnne and the other people who have done and seen and known far more than I have ever planned to do, people that I eat with several times a week. But a part of me has changed, knowing MaryAnne, knowing that someone can light a row of cubes in a regular, ordinary business place every morning, someone who can work with a cheerful, loving, self-forgetful spirit in an older body, someone who can look at me and see herself reflected and yet only see God's light in me. Someone who is that beautiful, whose beauty is not dependent on youth. Someone who gives me a glimpse of the power of the elderly, and the good life of the old. Someone who is more than I could ever dream of being.