Each morning when I get up and look to the eastern sky I feel my age.
The lack of sleep from the couch did not help my feeling old; then, of course, there was the fact that on that bleak morning, as most mornings, in my silent, ritualized existence I looked out and over at the retirement home.
I was on the sixth floor looking across the street each morning to an old man, like myself, who shared my morning schedule. And each morning I could see him sitting on the edge of his bed backlit by his dim bedside light. If he looked out his window, across the street, just waking with traffic and alive with bus noises and the first brave pedestrians, he could likely make a similar observation. Another old man standing by the window putting his shirt on as the sun rose over the sharp edges of the high rise buildings. So began our morning. We were joined by the sunrise.
Every morning I wondered about the old man. Who was he? Did he have visitors? Did he have children and if so did they ever call or visit? Was he well? Sick? Lonely? Was His wife dead? Did he ever have one? I direct those questions inward and see myself across the street not so many years from the present, in some such retirement home. Is that where it all leads? Is that the end game…hardly worth the effort.
No comments:
Post a Comment