The Chief of Something Or Other at the United Nations told us to get ready for something really scary from the skies: “It is,” he said in precise but heavily accented English, “Global Boiling.” Apparently the report that alarmed him indicated the triple-digit temperatures we have experienced lately is the warmest in history. He was gazing forward, but the view aft was oddly truncated.

We checked, since that is worth being alarmed about. It is actually the warmest only since 1950, when some of us were still swimming in amniotic fluid. Our favorite warmest boiling time was in the 1930s, something our grandparents called “The Dust Bowl.” So, we take today’s boiling as something in which we should stay hydrated. It did get us started on a list of little projects that has moved us off The Farm and back up to more urban Big Pink.

It was the right thing to do. Our former neighbors down in Culpeper’s green fields checked in. The Russians met the new owners and say they have three horses in the barn, four cows on the pasture, dogs and cats and kids. Growing things that seem happy.

It is what we had a vague idea to do with the place, including kids and grandkids. We had failed on a part of the planning, though. We had failed to appreciate the impact of aging, just as the UN Chief has. Part of the activity this week was an attempt to deal with it. We had a recommendation to meet with a lady who runs a senior-care consultation business. Some of the issues not previously considered could be lumped into a growing bin that includes the word “gerontologic” with a hyphen.

That naturally includes all the medical stuff with multiple hyphens- “Cardio,” being just one of them. We thought we had done the legal stuff- but the wills and PoA (Powers of Attorney!) are now contained in a strongbox seventy-one miles away. The sage counsel we got was to have someone who is in the business of organizing for eternity. Our recommended specialist was on her way to Big Pink for an appointment with us to rectify the situation.

Instead, she got snagged by a call from the emergency room about her own Mom, who was in trouble. She had to vector to the hospital instead of meeting with us. It was all done on text, and a replacement meeting was set for the weekend. We had to laugh about that, since life in this phase has no particular definition in days of the week since they are all basically the same.

That got us all thinking. There is a period in life when the torch is passed and we find ourselves as the remaining seniors in the circle. One of them was a day in January 2012. We had driven up to Michigan to visit Dad (in full care) and Mom (still in the assisted living apartment). It was a decent visit, following a more harrowing one in which we kidnapped Dad to move him across the Bay where he could be more efficiently supervised. It was uncomfortable, splitting up the couple who had been together for 64 years with a lie about “an important business trip.” So, once we had assured ourselves all was in order, we decided to spend the New Year’s Eve at home with the remaining members of the Willow gang.

That meant barreling back down I-75 from Northern Michigan to the Ohio-Pennsylvania Turnpikes and the familiar concrete path to a comfortable and drunken celebration at home. Our home.

Dad died just after lunch on January third. If we had known his link to this world was so tenuous we would have stayed. We were still working and the days of the week still mattered. We got word at the office in Arlington in the early afternoon that day. It was a stark moment, one spent looking at the handset to the phone after the connection clicked off. We started the notification process for family and friends and plans for the 800-mile drive back up north. There was another call, one of the ringing thicket of connections across the continent. Still at the desk as Happy Hour loomed on a sad day.

This one was from the assisted living center. We told them we knew Dad had gone. They responded slowly: “No, that isn’t why we called. It is about your Mom….”

So there was that rush of memory yesterday as the woman who would help us prepare for our trip to eternity had to adjust her schedule to help her own Mom before she could help us. She has her own speed-bumps to deal with as her Mom deals with the ones she must navigate. The process of life, from swimming in the amniotic world to the one we leave has its own rhythm and timing. We are happy to meet on the weekend. At the moment, we have the time and are completely flexible.

That is a remarkable feeling, not adrift but still making way. With time for gazing fore and aft.

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
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