Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Day 342, December 12


Dear friends,
 
I'm doing another story in installments.  This time, the story is true.  I hope you'll enjoy it.
 
 
                   DOROTOHY AND THE WALKER

 

     Early Saturday morning, December 23rd, the phone shrilled.

     "Jane, can you and Larry take me to the store?" my eighty-

two-year-old friend, Dorothy, asked. "I want to pick up a few

things before my company arrives."

     "We'll be there in fifteen minutes," I promised.   

     Though she suffered from many physical ailments, Dorothy

maintained a spirit of laughter and fun that infected everyone

fortunate enough to call her friend. 

     Despite the nearly thirty years that separated us, we had

become fast friends. I chauffeured her to doctor appointments,

to the store, to lunch at a small diner where she insisted upon

treating me.  All the while, she encouraged me not to "drive like

an old lady." 

     "I like to move," she said.  With a prayer on my lips and

Dorothy's hand on my elbow, urging me to go yet faster, we

careened through intersections, earning, I am certain, a few

choice words and gestures from other drivers.

     One of Dorothy's favorite activities during the Christmas

season was to go to a novelty store where we pushed the buttons

of all the holiday characters, sending them into frenzied song

and dance.  No plush Santa, stuffed snowman, or gaily dressed elf

was safe from our mischievous fingers.

     Clerks and shoppers gave us indulgent looks. 

1 comment:

  1. Oh, Dorothy. "I like to move." In a strange way, that could have been her epitaph. At the very least, she would have enjoyed the confused expressions on people's faces as they read it!

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