2013-01-23-Maybe-life-is-just--a-basketball-game-Cheer-on_ST_U.xml
^$^My friend Helen is over 100. No need to say how far over. At this point, what's the point? OK, she's 103.
She is still living in her own home and alert enough to send a note reminding me that I had missed both her birthday and Christmas, which I had. "Sorry," she wrote, "but I'm still here."
I finally sent her a response last week. In it, I told her that I had waited until mid-January to "invest" in a card. I wanted to make sure she had made it well into 2013 before I spent time and money sending her greetings.
As a no-nonsense Upstate New Yorker, I suspect she was not only impressed with my practicality but amused by it as well.
All of us are aging, of course. Some, like Helen, do it well. She still cheers for my alma mater, Syracuse, for instance, and I suspect this year's so-far successful basketball season will keep her going until March. Nothing like the possibility of a Final Four perch to get that heart pumping.
There are others who aren't so lucky.
I was reminded of that the other day watching Amour, the award-winning foreign film about an elderly couple grappling with the ravages of aging. The wife has had a debilitating stroke, and her devoted husband cares for her. No, not a comedy.
Amour is such an exceptional film you feel as if you're there in their Paris apartment, watching as the months pass and Anne, the wife, slips further away. Does she even recognize her husband anymore?
Jodie Foster doesn't need a movie to wonder about such things. She mentioned her elderly mom in a speech at the recent Golden Globes.
"This brings me to my greatest influence in my life, my amazing mother, Evelyn. Mom, I know you're inside those blue eyes somewhere and that there are so many things that you won't understand tonight, but this is the only important one to take in: I love you, I love you, I love you. I hope that if I say this three times, it will magically and perfectly enter into your soul, fill you with grace and the joy of knowing that you did good in this life."
Helen and I have hopes of our own. Go Orange!
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