I have not been in coffee shops too much lately for a variety of reasons; however, I have been out and about town. Today I was waiting at a stop light when a four-door purple Ford Fiesta pulled up beside me. I looked over and could hardly see the driver, except for her white hair. Her hands were precisely at 10 and 2 o'clock on the steering wheel, and she waited in the left turn lane. She was short or petite in the way that elderly seem to be. I tried to imagine her point of view, because her head did not seem to be much higher than the steering wheel. I'm pretty sure that she had to look through the gap of the steering wheel in order to see the traffic. When the light turned green, she pulled away slowly, and I noticed that she had a bumper sticker for the classic rock station in town.
She reminded me of a woman I once knew, Althea, who had these large, warm, soft hands. I knew Althea from the time when I volunteered at a Hospice House. Each week I would visit Althea, and each week I would have to introduce myself. The house where she lived was the temporary home for six or seven other elderly people, and they mostly dealt with Alzheimer's. Althea and I would "walk around the house," which basically meant walking from the kitchen table to the couch to the window that looked out into the neighborhood. Although the "walk" covered only about 30 feet in total, it took most of the hour that I was there. She walked slowly, one foot moving forward in inches, followed by the next few inches.
The thing I learned from Althea (and from others there) was that she was just happy to have someone be with her. She didn't care about what I did as a job. She didn't care about where I was from. She didn't care about any accomplishments I might have attained in my life. She was just glad that I was there. To see her. To talk with her. To walk with her. To let her hold my hand. She was just so thankful, which made any worry that I might have had in my life slip away, at least for the time I was with her.
As I watched the purple Ford Fiesta move slowly away, I thought about Althea and her slow moving walks. Being with the elderly, at least for me, makes me slow down. I wondered who the white-haired lady was going to see. I wonder who she appreciates enough to climb into the car and to peek through a steering wheel to go see.
I wonder whose hand she is going to hold.
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Sarah Kay, "Hands" on Def Poetry
