I'm Walking Behind You

Yesterday John and I looked at apartments in New York City with our friend, Elaine, who is also our agent. While I'm still healing from a knee replacement (old news) I've thrown caution to the wind and instead of following my physical therapist's recommendation -- "only one event per day" -- have tried to return to my normal life which includes multiple events usually followed by satisfaction and exhaustion (leg up with ice).

We drove to the City and walked four blocks to an apartment Elaine thought we should see. The problem was that while I could walk the distance, I couldn't keep the pace. Periodically I asked the others to slow down and they did for a few minutes, then returned to that city speed not realizing I was lagging behind.

Sometimes we find ourselves ignoring the problems of others because its inconvenient, because we're impatient, because its delaying us from where I want to go. I know I certainly have and yesterday as I walked along I remembered the many times I asked my Mother to hurry along and she would say, Chris, it's as fast as I can walk. Her lagging always annoyed me because I still thought of her as the forty year old in a print cotton dress picking me up at school or bringing cupcakes into the classroom for my birthday. Why "suddenly" I would say to myself, isn't she keeping up? I never wanted to admit she was aging or that her arthritis was bothering her.

My husband and my friend didn't do anything out of malice. They were just headed for an appointment -- and I daresay that watching me lope along reminded them, too, of the very thing I didn't want to see in my Mother.

So remember, please, when you bark (as I have been known to do) at that very slow gray-haired driver in front of you whose head barely meets the door frame, they are doing the best they can. Yes, perhaps they shouldn't be driving, however, they, too are dealing with that process which will happen to the best of us.