Wednesday arrives, my new friend told us, and sometimes I just think where are those damn women?She is ninety years old, my new friend (and soon to be family member). Those damn women are her two sisters, her two older sisters, both of whom passed away this year, within a few months of each other.
Roz doesn't look like she's ninety, certainly doesn't act like she's ninety, except to the extent that she pulls rank on all of us and makes us follow her rules, at least when we are in her home. She is an accomplished cook, an impeccable hostess, and a self-proclaimed chocolate addict; only a fool would turn down an invitation to lunch at Roz's. Even when I know she will ask me, every time, how I managed to have two such beautiful daughters. Rare good luck. That's her current theory. She is smart as a whip, a probably right.
Wielding a sharp knife with shaking hands, she demonstrated for us how she single-handedly transformed a bowl full of radishes into a bouquet of intricately cut flowers. She assigned us our seats around a table set for royalty, and disappeared for a while into her small kitchen to prepare individual plates for her assorted vegetarian and lactose intolerant and unabashedly omnivorous (that would be me) guests. Obeying instructions, we did not even attempt to help, even as she emerged, holding one precariously tipped plate at a time, to serve us.
The ostensible recklessness of the sharp knife and the radishes notwithstanding, Roz is acutely aware of her age-related limitations, but still, they continue to surprise her. She told me once that she doesn't know how she got to this place, to being ninety and unable to do things as well or as quickly as she once could. I get what she's saying, though when I look at the bouquet of radish flowers I imagine that a younger, unlimited Roz must have been quite a force of nature. At fifty-six, were I to attempt even a fraction of her culinary or vegetable paring feats, I would be missing at least a few fingers and sporting at least a few third degree burns.
Though nobody, least of whom Roz, was caught by surprise by the passing of her two older sisters, the pain of the loss hangs heavily over Roz's beautiful table. On our way down for lunch, my daughters and my future son-in-law and I talked about family and staying close and about how fleeting everything is. We are still reeling from the excruciating and untimely loss of somebody dear to us, and we find ourselves, still, holding on to those we love with a bit more urgency. We know how quickly life can change, and we know not to take things, people, or time for granted. We are afraid to blink, sometimes.
In Roz's eyes, we are relatively young, my children and I. We cannot possibly imagine what it's like to blink and realize nobody lasts forever. She had a good run, we say, as if that kind of conventional wisdom somehow diminishes the hole left by a friend or a parent or a sister who has always been there and now just is not. And as acutely aware as Roz is of the inevitability of loss and limitation, she is just as acutely aware, if not more so, of new gains and new possibilities. She is excited about her grandson's upcoming wedding to my daughter, thrilled that her family, recently shrunken, is about to grow again.
My baby is off to Paris today for a semester, and there's a chunk of me that wants to handcuff her to her bed and make her miss her flight. I felt the same way when my son left for Japan, and I will feel the same way when my older daughter and her fiance return to New York on Monday. I feel the same way each time I let any of them go. I will simply learn to channel my inner Roz, who never ceases to find joy in the good stuff. I will make flowers out of radishes.
No comments:
Post a Comment