*Old Age Is

This is not a true story. Well, it's partially true. I'm not telling which parts. _SJ

My friend Lindy and I are meeting for lunch tomorrow. We lost track of each other a couple of years after she went back east with a new husband, and that was mid- 80’s maybe. I’ll have to ask her exactly when. And what is her husband’s name? Dan? Dave? I’ll have to ask her that too. I never knew him well.

I found out she was back in the Seattle area from her first husband Gary. Him I knew. In the Biblical sense, long after our respective divorces. It was an experience never talked about and never repeated. When I ran into him last week, Lindy seemed the safest thing to talk about. He gave me her phone number.

At first, Lindy and I bragged about our kids and then we decided on a time and place to meet for lunch.

“It’s been more than 20 years,” I said. “Think we’ll recognize each other?”

There was silence.

“I’ll be the one with the oxygen tank,” she said finally.

“Fuck!”

“Tell me about it. I have lung cancer. Well, the one lung I have left has cancer, is what I mean.”

“I’m a blonde now,” I offered.

“Me too,” she laughed.

“Mine’s a wig,” I explained. I lost all my hair.”

“Chemo? You’ve got cancer too?!”

“No,” I said. "For awhile, they suspected a thyroid imbalance or lupus. Finally turned out to be plain ol' menopause. That was seven years ago. I don’t have hot flashes anymore or emotional melt-downs. And I don’t have hair, either.”

“How about a man,” she asked? “Got one of those?”

“Nope,” I admitted. “My boyfriend of 15 years or so, we were finally going to get married. Then he sailed off into the sunset with a younger woman. Literally, on his sailboat, her long hair flowing in the breeze. So how are you and, uh, Doug doing?"

“We’re not,” she said. “Three years ago, after my doctor told me one of the lungs would need to come out, he sailed off into the sunset too. Not literally. But with a younger and, I imagine, healthier woman.”

“Seems like we have lots to talk about besides memories of our wilder days.”

“How’s the old crowd? I ask Gary, but he never tells me anything.”

“Let see, Randy's Parkinsons is, apparently, beyond any of the drugs they have for it these days. Bits and Sade each fought cancer for about five years apiece. One in the breasts, one had melanoma. They’re both gone now. Nina had a stroke. We don’t know if she’s there, inside herself or not. Who else, who else. Oh. Junie. Well, when Matthew had a heart attack and died last year, June decided to run the farm all by herself. She got worn down to bare bone, but insisted on driving Matt’s damn backhoe instead of hiring out. It flipped and she was crushed.”

“Seems like you’re the lucky one.”

“Seems like I was, until I broke my hip last year.”

“Getting old,” she said. “It’s…”

Her sentence trailed off. It didn’t need to be finished.

“Yes,” I agreed. “It is.”