Sometimes Everything Just Falls In Place...Perfectly!

I don't remember what the reason was for giving Mary a ride to see the doctor a few weeks ago. She's always complaining that they give her so many appointments just so they can bill Medicare. Anyway, a couple of years ago her vision had gotten to the point where she decided to give up driving. I think she was 82 at the time. I promised to take her to the grocery store every week, and when I can I take her to her doctor appointments also. The city has a little shuttle bus that will take her for free, even picking her up and dropping her off right at her house. This usually means getting to the doctor's office an hour or two early and perhaps waiting afterwards for perhaps another hour to get the ride home. Then she still doesn't get her shopping done.

I usually just take her. Sometimes I leave her and she calls me on my cell when she's ready to go. Other times, like this one, I go in with her, watch the soaps on the TV or read the newspaper, and usually get some info from the doctor about the state of her health so I can tell her if I think maybe she needs to go back and see him again if I don't think that her latest prescription is working correctly. Then we go to the grocery store and do some shopping. On occasion I'll take her to Starbucks. She loves her coffee and still smokes cigarettes. She did give up on the brandy, though, a few years ago.

She has no children of her own and what's left of her family, a couple of elderly brothers, live in Pennsylvania. I've known her for nearly 30 years now, so I guess that makes me "family" in her mind. She's still quite independant and lives with a small dog and a bunch of cats in a little trailer. Going into a nursing home would destroy her.

So here we are in the doctor's waiting room. The ceiling fixture of little spot lights makes for some interesting light patterns on the wall, nothing like the usual boring flourescents would make. She wasn't feeling well and it shows, and I guess you could say that I'm striking a pose for the benefit of the camera in my left hand. Half an hour later she'd been convinced that there was really nothing wrong with her and was suddenly looking chipper again as she pushed a shopping cart through the nearby Publix Market. The only help she needed was lifting a 40 pound sack of cat food into the cart.