Cimbing Hills

On the trail I saw her this morning, a diminutive figure, hunched over, her white shoes contrasting with her lose fitting blue pants and her flowered blouse moving with each step.  At the distance I noticed a faded, yellow sunshade pulled down over her forehead, eyes barely uncovered.  She was moving slowly on the dirt and gravely road.  She wasn’t unlike others who daily walked the pathway trying to get some exercise during this isolating time.

But the most noticeable thing I really saw was the item over which she hunched and struggled moving forward:  It was one of those Rollator Walkers, the kind you can sit on.  It has hand brakes too!  She was making ruts in the dust as she pushed forward.

Anyway, our closing distance narrowed:  Mickey my old pal, his nose straight up in the air trying to detect something in the distance, didn’t seem to care about her.  He had other ideas.

I noticed that she was about to transition from the dirt and gravel area to a steep, paved part of the continuing road down where there was a lip on the transition between the dirt and asphalt.  I quickened my pace to meet her and reached out to help her lift her walker onto the paved surface.  I quickly noticed that her face was weathered and wrinkled – hard days in the past, I assumed.  (She had to be over eighty years old, if she was a day!)

In a foreign accent she said, “I’ve got it!”

I couldn’t help it:  I still reached out and gently lifted the front of the walker to the pavement (I blame my instinct to help on chivalry).  I noticed she wasn’t wearing a restricting mask (nor did I) and she was breathing steadily as she strode on.  I was quite taken back. 

I turned toward the steep incline, motioned upward, and said: “Will you be ok going up,” as I tried to image her tackling the slope with the walker.  I’ve seen many a younger person breathing heavily walking up that stretch of the trail.    

She snickered and said, “I hope so!  I do it all of the time!”   

Wow!  I was totally impressed.  Here was this elderly woman, determined not to waste her day, but willing to tackle her hill, pushing the object which, for most, would victimize them and hasten their demise.  COVID wasn’t about to get her down:  A toast to her and wishing her many more hills to go!