I’d noticed an elderly couple seated across from me during our group meeting. The man had an open manner about himself, a very cool “what you see is what you get” vibe. He was dressed Durangoan-style, unpretentious in a blue-and-green flannel shirt and dark blue tee.
As the meeting was ending, he leaned over in his seat to make a final point. He raised his hand to shoulder height then turned it palm up, as if making an offering to a companion. “Imagine there is a rose lying here in my hand,” he said. “Life is like that rose!” And – by force of who-knows-what – it was as if his words had conjured up a real rose. I saw it in the palm of his hand.
Just a couple of hours earlier, as I was walking to my car, lost in thought, again it was words, a very few words, that caught my attention. A man standing there (wearing his blue jeans, a vest and a cowboy hat, as if to the manner born), tipped his hat (did a piece of silver on the headband catch the sun?) and said, “Good day, ma’am.” The intonation he gave to those three words and the words themselves created an undeniable, irresistible charm. Those words really can dazzle an old lady from back East, I decided.
And yesterday, when I was entering a store, walking with my “rollator,” an extra-fancy walking aid, a fine-looking fellow with a remarkably attractive longish, very white beard stopped me. “Nice looking walker,” he said. As he examined features like the hand brakes and the collapsible chair, I said, “Yes, it’s nice, but it’s pretty beat-up.” As we parted I added, flippantly, “Just hope you never need one!” and he admonished me: “Every day is a bonus.” Lesson learned, I smiled back. “Go, girl!” he said as I walked off and “OK, babe …” I answered, back over my shoulder.
To complete the picture, 15 minutes later, as I exited the store, a teenage couple rushed over to me, vibrant and radiant in their youth. “Oh! My Grandpa had a rollator just like yours! He loved it! It is the best thing ever!!” They just stood there, for a few minutes, gushing over me. I was gratified, that in some way that I and my rollator had brought a beloved grandparent to mind.
But now … let’s go back to the man with the rose in the palm of his hand. Let’s watch him as he stands up, turns his hand over and says, “The rose will die. Just as we do.” When he intones those words, I see all the pink rose petals slowly fall from his hand to the ground. “Don’t be sad,” he says, as all of us listen. “It could be a whole new beginning for the rose.”
Jo Gibson worked 20 years as an adjunct faculty member in the English department at Cleveland State University, and as a freelance writer with the Cleveland Plain Dealer. She earned degrees from Kent State University and Cleveland State University and loves her new home in Durango.
