GETTING OLD

Recently the roles have changed. I realized just last night how much older my grandmother has become these past few months. Her actions are a little more clumsy, her focus a little less attentive, her memory a little slower. Though her heart remains generous, her speech slowly has been retracting to that of a child. After dinner, she expressed her desire to eat an apple, but not by asking for one; rather, she told a story about how the volunteers at the neighborhood senior center would serve them apple. Her approach to wanting someone to cut an apple for her struck me as unusual. Perhaps in asking directly she would be accepting that she has become inept in serving herself, that she could no longer take care of herself... something no human being wants to admit. My story ends with me peeling and slicing a fuji apple for my po-po, while remembering how she only a few years back did the same for me.