This is my neighbor (Image link if it doesn’t show above).
I don’t know how old she is, but my guess is well into her 90s. Her spine has her hunched over almost a full 90 degrees and she’s more blind and deaf than she is seeing and hearing.
Today, she ventured over to my house and we had a quick chat. A lot of what she was saying didn’t make sense, but, I carried on with her at a decibel loud enough for all of the immediate neighbors to hear. Once finished, she turned to leave and I followed her home.
…What I found interesting is right as she turned the corner from her driveway onto her front porch walkway, she noticed out of the corner of her downward pointed gaze a flower pot and a weed. She reached into the flower pot and pruned away the dead branches… took a few more steps, grabbed the weed that was as tall as her, bent it to the ground and stomped on it until it snapped.
…And yet, just a few moments earlier, when we were talking in my driveway, she told me that if she died, her house would go to her son and daughter—which, she said as casually as she did their names—”might be tonight.”
…And yet, there she was, still tending to her garden; still bringing beauty to the world; still managing what worldly chaos she could in the best way she knew how.