Number of minutes I just spent reorganizing the stuff on the fridge. Not IN the fridge....ON the fridge. My magnets have never been more orderly. Nor I more lame.

Rob and I just got back from a trip to California. He had a conference in San Jose, and afterwards we took a few days to see Yosemite. My brother joined us for the Yosemite part of the trip, and he and I had one day together while Rob was still in the conference. My brother hadn't been to San Francisco, so we spent the day seeing the city. I had a list of places I wanted to take him, and at the top of that list? What else, people? The Full House houses! Best spot in the city.

I'm strolling through the mall, gazing into the shops as I pass, the heels of my shoes clicking on the shiny floor tiles. I walk past an old man sitting alone at a table. A shaft of sunlight shines down from a window above, bathing him in brightness. It's as if he's sitting onstage in a spotlight, his shock of hair gleaming white. I give him a sideways glance as I pass. He looks up at me, but I avert my eyes. And then immediately I wonder why I avoided his gaze. He looks kind, and a bit lonely. Or maybe just bored.

I soon head back the way I came, and I decide that if the man is still sitting there, I will smile. Just to acknowledge him. After all, he is not anonymous, not an archetype, not The Old Man in a play. He is a person with a soul.

I soon see that he is still sitting at the table, still in the spotlight. He is looking down, his nose buried in a handkerchief. I doubt he will even look up, but when I walk by he raises his eyes to meet mine.

I smile, and he responds with a wink.

His timing is so impeccable, it seems we'd rehearsed it. As I walk on, my smile widens, and I suspect this exchange brightened my day even more than it did his.

Just trimmed the hair that hangs over my eyes all fancy like my stylist does, snipping somewhat randomly at strange angles. Now thinking perhaps there was an actual method to her madness, a method I missed, because I now have bangs that weren't there before. Notched, blunt bangs. With a bit of a gap in one place.

Fuck.

When we arrive, an elderly man greets us at the door. He stands straight and speaks kindly. He tells us his wife is very sick and he didn't know what else to do. He thought about taking her to the hospital himself, he says, but she's too weak to walk and too sick to sit in the waiting room.

She is too ill even to talk to us. I ask for her birthdate, her social security number, her doctor's name. He answers the questions. He can tell me what she's eaten, when her last bowel movement was, when he gave her medications. I suggest he may want to bring her Medicare card along and he fetches her purse and knows right where to find it.

The one thing he can't tell me is what medicine she is allergic to. He knows there is one, but he can't recall the name right now. But he does not ask her. She has Alzheimer's, he tells me. I suspect that even when she isn't sick, he still takes care of her.

I ask him to show me her medications, and he leads me to the kitchen where he opens a cabinet door above the stove. The shelves are full of pill bottles. He scans the neat rows and chooses one bottle, then another, then a third. He hands them to me, saying, "These are all of hers, I think." He inspects the shelves again to be sure. "Yes, just these three. The rest are for my cancer."

Later in the evening I find I'm still thinking about this man and his wife, about "in sickness and in health." About what it means to grow old together.

I tell Rob about it, and I tear up a little when I get to the part where the man tells me, The rest are for my cancer. I say, shaking my head, "I am just now starting to see what it's like to be old."

And we are but only beginning to understand what it means to grow old together. The pain of illness, the ache of nostalgia. The blessing of waking to another day, just to struggle through it. The helplessness of watching one another deteriorate. The underlying understanding of where it's all headed.

I think back to my last glimpse of the elderly couple as I left her hospital room. He was standing by her bedside, talking to the nurses on her behalf. Answering questions. Expressing concerns. Advocating for her.

The fierce devotion. The inspiring patience. The strong alliance of a lifelong friendship. The loving touch of his wrinkled hand smoothing her white hair. Yes, we are but only beginning to understand what it means to grow old together.

the little girl, with the big Nikon around her neck, taking pictures of the other kids dancing