Holding hands

As I entered her apartment and sat down, Margie said, “You look sad. What’s going on?” 

I told her about my friend who has adrenal cancer, my neighbor with a broken arm, the houseless man I talked with on my way home from the hospital last night. I asked him how he was, and he answered, "Made it through another day." I said my life is fine, but aging and poverty are hard, and I’m feeling that hardness.

“Yes,” she said, “you would. And it’s true. But you’re doing the work you came here to do, so that’s OK.”

“Caring,” I said, nodding. "Paying attention."

“Holding people’s hands,” she reached out to me with hers. “It’s all we can do, and most people don’t do that much.” 

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think most people reach out to others, do what they can.” She laughed, “Ever the optimist, you.” That reminded her of someone at summer camp in New York State when she was eleven years old, and we spent the rest of our time in 1937, at Camp Mikan. “Oh the water in Lake Cohasset. It was slippery and cool, and I would get into the canoe and let my hand drag through the water, rippling the silence of that deep lake. I’ll never forget that.”