Not So Ordinary

We’d reached the corner of the block, at the same time. I don’t remember exactly how our conversation started. I think it was that she’d admired Wolfie, who had previously been keeping himself busy, by sniffing every bush in sight. Now, he was patiently standing by my side, as we paused for this frail and elderly lady, carefully navigating the corner with her walker.

The next part of our conversation went as so many of my conversations do, when she said “oh, you have an accent”. I responded in my usual way, with “I don’t have an accent… you’re the one with an accent!”. Usually this stops people in their tracks for a moment, and then elicits a smile. This time, I heard her response more clearly, in a very proper English accent. “Yes, I do. I’m English.”  Having determined that we both originated from the same piece of rock in the Atlantic Ocean, I asked her whereabouts. “Sussex”, she said. “I’m from Chesterfield”, I replied.

We exchanged names, with Pat introducing herself as “I’m Pat… it’s a very ordinary name”. She went on to tell me how she came to be in the US. When she was a young woman, her mother had encouraged her to broaden her horizons, by visiting her relatives in the US. “I came over by boat. It was far too expensive to fly, in those days”, she said. On that first morning, as a stranger in a strange land, albeit snuggled in the bosom of her family, she’d gone off to exchange some money. As she was in line, she met a young man, who caught her eye, and they started talking. 

“Was it love at first sight?”, I asked. “No”, she said, adding with a twinkle in her eye, “but it didn’t take long, and then we were together, until the day that he died”. Pausing for a moment, I then asked how long that had been. She seemed to do the math in her head, and then answered “we were together for 65 years, until her died 3 years ago”.  “I am so sorry to hear that. It sounds like you had a wonderful life together”. “We did”, she said, and in that moment, I saw the beauty and seeming inevitability of their chance meeting. I looked again, as she shaded her eyes from the warm Floridian sun, and now I saw her genteel frailty.

“Do you walk here, every day?”, I asked. “I walk every day, but not always here”, she said. I told her that I would look out for her, and that I was looking forward to our next conversation. As I write this, I’m looking for Wolfie’s leash, so that we can go in search of our new, and not so ordinary friend.