The aging process sucks. I will reach for a word and somehow it is misplaced. If I wait a few moments, often my unconscious mind will dig through my synapses and find the name I had on the tip of my tongue. Most recently I was trying to remember the famous old Alabama football coach. I confess I had to resort to Google. Of course it was Bear Bryant—that one got buried under a huge pile of things I used to know. Now I want to tell you about my missing cane.
I suppose the hard part begins with having to admit I now have to use a cane. I proudly own four of them. One for each car and two for the house. One for upstairs and one for downstairs. The “house canes” are red and white. Red goes upstairs and white goes down. That is unless I get both of them in the garage. Don’t ask me why.
So two weeks ago I brought them both in with the intention of getting white cane back to the basement. Within five minutes I had misplaced white cane. MK, who I suspect had tried to be helpful, pleaded innocent. I looked everywhere. How does a cane walk away without a semi-crippled 75 year-old driving it? We both scoured the house. No cane.
Every day I went on a cane search. I looked over, under, around, too many times. It did not make sense. I began to suspect the supernatural. Daughter Amy did not find it. What the heck. More than one friend told me the same thing, “It will show up”.
This past Thursday I was looking in our primary closet for some jeans. There it was—hanging from the clothes rod between some of my favorite shirts. Obviously, two weeks ago I went into the closet and hung it there, and then immediately forgot that I had been there.
There are some great things about growing old… I just can’t remember what they are. A friend just told me “Most of us can relate” … if you can’t —just wait.
Onward and Upward,
Mark
Lyfting Me Up 