Hope you enjoy this rerun.  It is near the top of all my posts as far as likes and comments.  I still get a kick out of it.  Come and grow old with me.

*****************

How humiliating!  I had to hold my husband’s hand as we walked to the car this morning.  Now we’ve been married and I have held my dear husband’s hand for 63 years with pleasure, many miles I’m sure and enjoyed each mile of it, but that was when I didn’t have to hold his hand.  I assure you there is a vast difference in holding hands and in having to hold hands.

Situation was this:  My eighty-six year old husband, Sammy,  and I went out to eat breakfast at the Mason Lodge Fundraiser for the Senior Center.  The following is reason for my agitation.

1. We went in separate vehicles. I didn’t care about where he parked because he is fit as a fiddle and runs most anywhere he goes.

2. I did care about where I parked. But I still had to go to the back forty to find a place.  I got out of the car, couldn’t even see the entrance door, so I looked at my cane over in the passenger seat.  Looked for the entrance again.  It hadn’t moved any closer.  Looked at the cane in the passenger seat again.  Could I manage without it?  Which is preferable:  to waddle with a cane, or to double-waddle without it?

3. I remind myself I’m at a fundraiser for Senior Citizens. Surely others will have canes.  My “without-cane” waddle is pretty bad and besides I might fall.  I take the cane.

4. Yes, there were others with canes. That made it worse.  They were all old people with canes and waddles, some even had a waddling canes!  What if younger people saw me with them!  My hair is not gray.  Maybe they would think I was post accident not pre accident.  If I had borrowed Sammy’s workout jacket, they might think I had just stretched a muscle.

5. I ditched the cane on the back of a chair as soon as I found an empty one. It was much more age appropriate for me to hang onto the back of all the chairs as I waddled to the food line.

6. I believe holding a full plate of biscuits, gravy, eggs, hash-browns, pancake, and sausage strengthened me. Fortified by the outlook of food and with the determination that I was not going to drop that plate, I was able to walk slowly and gracefully back to the chair where my cane waited unused.  At least I walked slowly and steadily—didn’t want to jiggle my food together.

7. Friends sat with us. Good food.  Good visiting.  I only asked Sammy to go for one refill of gravy for me.  He hopped right up, got a bowl of gravy for me.  I shared it with him and a friend.  Others might not have noticed that he was getting the gravy for me.

8. Finally it is bye-bye, time to go. After friends left, I retrieved the cane and headed down the aisle.  With cane in my right hand, Sammy took my left.  We both tried to ignore the cane.  Before we left, a friend gave me a gift of a candle.  Sweet of her but I didn’t have a third hand!  Sammy had two hands  – one free of me so he carried the candle in it.  He went to my car with me—he walked, I waddled, but I was able to keep my cane from waddling.

True to our sixty-three years together, he assured himself that I was safely in the car, kissed me bye, and dashed back to his vehicle.

I surely must have done something right.  I made no mistake when I fluttered my eyelashes at him when I was eighteen.