I was thinking about C today (she’s one of my regulars on my Meals on Wheels route). I haven’t seen her lately—for the last three weeks her caregiver has told me she’s sick in bed, sleeping, or fighting a bronchial infection. I have fretted over her, and knowing her advanced age, I never know which week will be the start of a further decline, which predates a bad fall, which week may even be her last. When I walk into the MOW center to pick up my food every Wednesday morning, I never know who will still be on my list, who has moved on to either self-sufficiency, or sadly, to an assisted living center or even passed. Anything could — and has — happened.

C. is a crazy smoker with a butt forever lit and frailer and leaner than a handful of kindling but she has shown an amazing resiliency. She has survived multiple infections and multiple hospitalizations in the three years or so I have known her, but each time she seems to make it back home. In this case, her nest is an enormous Craftsman, badly in need of new carpets and updates of every possible kind but still standing proud in a neighborhood of other big boned beauties, each with its own broad shoulders, grand parlours, and magnificent stairways. …

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