The Human Condition

While I was eating lunch today, there was a cry for help. I ran out into the hallway. One of the old ladies who live on my floor had fallen.

Altogether half a dozen of my neighbors responded. We brought her pillows and recovered her dignity (her blouse was loose, and her wig had slipped). Two other old biddies came out and were giving her a hard time about walking about on her own and not having Life Alert. She had only gone downstairs to get the mail. They shut up when her age was revealed. She was 93. "I thought I was the oldest on this floor," said one of the biddies. Both of them were merely in their eighties.

Three of us neighbors are women in their twenties and (ahem) thirties. I suppose for some, old age is disturbing, a glimpse of what is to come. But really, does this sort of foreshadowing make a difference? I think we all know and accommodate aging into our lives. It happens, and it can be prepared for.

There paramedics said her hip was dislocated. They did not say one way or the other that the hip was broken.

I hope she is alright.