Ten-Finger Exercises

wheels

I visited a new hospice patient today, a woman who has been in a very lovely private facility, primarily for people with dementia, for over a year. She did not make eye contact or look as if she was even aware I was there. I spoke loudly and clearly up close, and she did at one point say, "What?" It didn't appear that she couldn't hear however, just that she wasn't processing anything. An aide tried with the same result. No wheels were turning.

How very sad to be lost like that, lost from your very own self.

Mother had always had something akin to perfect pitch; she had perfect direction. She could always tell which way she was headed, like a compass in her head. When we moved her out of her home and near us after she lost her driver's license, she no longer knew which way was north. She tried guessing all the time."We're going south now, aren't we?" She was never right. She had trouble finding her own room in a hall with two doors. I'm glad she is somewhere safe and familiar now, surrounded by God. She did know the Way.

I digressed, but that's okay. I was going on to remark on other wheels I saw as I left Eagle Springs. (Have you ever noticed that Adult Retirement homes have names that sound like wineries? Quick, is Quail Run a retirement home or a winery? How about Wheatlands? Mountain View? Seven Hills?
Bunchgrass?

Answers: the first two are retirement homes; the last two are wineries; the middle one is a cemetary.

Double digress? Anyway, leaving Eagle Springs I pulled out on a four lane road that goes up a short but steep hill and immediately turns a sharp corner. On the sidewalk on the same side of the road was a resident in a electric wheelchair headed up the hill. On the opposite side was a woman on in-line skates pushing a stroller coming down the hill, followed by a man on in-line skates being pulled by two golden retrievers straining at their leashes.

I bet skating like that is fun. I can only remember regular skates, and mostly of the clamp-on and skate key variety.

I remember pretending that someone might drive by and see me skating along the sidewalk and notice how graceful and wonderful I was, but then I'd fall and have to skate home for merthiolate for my knees. I lived with knee scabs a lot.

I'm glad I'm not in a wheelchair, but I'm certainly way past ever trying in-line skates. On the continuum of life, my wheels are rolling along.