Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Age's Steep Ascent



I can’t put it aside any longer. I prepare to carry down the week’s garbage. Slowly I move bags filled and with an aroma best not described towards the door. I love old homes and my apartment is an old 19th century dwelling, filled with history, character, stories told and untold. What I do not love is their penchant for building steep stairs to enter and leave.

Situating myself in the doorway, holding firmly to the rail for these old legs tend to give way on occasion, I carefully drag the bags down those steps, through the breezeway, and out the side door. By then I’m already weary from pain and bones riddled with arthritis, spine with discs pushing against nerves and back bent with age, and still a few more steps off the porch. Carefully I sit down for a moment, resting and rising again, put the garbage in their proper cannister. It’s time to go back up. On the first step my leg gives and the rail supports me, a short prayer of gratitude, before continuing. If the steps were bad going down, the journey back even more so. One step at a time. Pain radiates up my leg, through the groin, into the small of the back. Then the next step. Same thing. Slowly I ascend.

I’ve a special name for those last three steps. Shit… Hell…F__k, and Damn. Still, as I rise, the light for the apartment beckons. Promise of rest and relaxation. My wheelchair sitting nearby. A short distance to a waiting recliner. I embrace each step. Shit… three more to go. Hell… Okay I know we Jews don’t believe in Hell aside from the hell we find on earth. Still this pain. F__k, and Damn I’m almost there. The light beckons me up and within. A sigh of relief for a journey once again.

So it occurred to me, my journey, discarding the garbage, struggling ever upward, is a metaphor for old age. One day there will be the final journey. Until then, I struggle. I prevail. Embracing both the pain and the light. Like so many before me and so many who will come after.