SURVEYING THE DAMAGE

We haven’t been getting our mail regularly, and it isn’t until a pine tree falls on our neighbor’s house that we learn why. He’s an old southern gentleman, a retiree; he stays pretty much to himself, tending his garden. Today though, with a limb stabbing into his roof and a few neighbors milling about admiring the damage, he asks, “You keeping an eye on Mrs. D across the street?”

My wife and I look at each other, as if to acknowledge a loaded question.

“She’s been stealing everyone’s mail,” he says.

We’re quite familiar with Mrs. D’s condition, her Alzheimer’s; she gets a little confused.

He tells us how she walked into Pete’s house the other day. Luckily, Pete’s biker tenant didn’t panic; he simply informed her that her house was across the street and waited for her to process the information, to form a logical conclusion as to her whereabouts.

Mrs. D continues to wander our neighborhood. Her 92-year-old husband comes over to the downed tree, surveys the damage, and apologizes for his wife’s illness. He’s a bit rough around the edges. He says, “Just kick her in the ass and send her on her way.”

Of course we know he doesn’t mean it. Afterall, it is he who sprung her from a brief stint in the nursing home, after having heart surgery himself.

I take a deep breath and listen to the numerous conversations; the smell of pine, for whatever reason, has me thinking about how fragile we truly are.