A Sunday afternoon movie watching club organized by my wife and a friend. I showed up late with ginger cookies and so when I got there a game of dominoes had gotten started. I met a tiny woman in her nineties who told me that she used to enjoy playing the game with her friend of many decades, who'd just turned 103. 'Oh, how I miss my friend. We talk every week on the phone.'
The domino set they used was one her friend had brought with her from Europe. 'It used to be her mother's. It's beautiful and she would win'
'She was on the third floor down in New York and I was on the fourth. We used to see each other every day.'
'I may go down to see her on her birthday. Bus, train, it's all the same. Oh how I miss her since I moved up here.'
I thought of the invisible cord of friendship linking this lady at the movie watching club and her buddy, the many hours they'd spent together talking out problems and playing games. Their children had grown up knowing each other, so each must have been something like aunt to her friend's kids.
Not work, nor war, but the exigencies of care-giving had forced them apart. How they must long to hear the steps of the other on the stair treads,
The old lady sort of liked the film but got tired before the end. Her son, as I or older, came when called to drive her home. No, she didn't need any help with her coat zipper. That done, she took her cane, and with superb dignity, marched to the door. Her driver followed, but not before we'd pressed on him the last of the ginger cookies.
The domino set they used was one her friend had brought with her from Europe. 'It used to be her mother's. It's beautiful and she would win'
'She was on the third floor down in New York and I was on the fourth. We used to see each other every day.'
'I may go down to see her on her birthday. Bus, train, it's all the same. Oh how I miss her since I moved up here.'
I thought of the invisible cord of friendship linking this lady at the movie watching club and her buddy, the many hours they'd spent together talking out problems and playing games. Their children had grown up knowing each other, so each must have been something like aunt to her friend's kids.
Not work, nor war, but the exigencies of care-giving had forced them apart. How they must long to hear the steps of the other on the stair treads,
The old lady sort of liked the film but got tired before the end. Her son, as I or older, came when called to drive her home. No, she didn't need any help with her coat zipper. That done, she took her cane, and with superb dignity, marched to the door. Her driver followed, but not before we'd pressed on him the last of the ginger cookies.
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