Keeping Up

Standing in the check-out line at Winco yesterday, I heard someone call my name. It was George Huff, recent widower of Gretta. She was 96 when she died two months ago; George is 13 years younger, as he used to like to mention--before she died--and for the last three or more years has done everything, which he also liked to mention. "And I mean everything," he would say, "inside the house and outside. It's wearing me out."

Toward the last, he couldn't keep up with all that needed to be done, so they had someone come in for a while in the mornings. Hospice, I suppose.

Since her death George has cried a lot. I have seen it, how it comes over him unexpected, and have been sad for him but glad he misses her. I mean, doing everything did not wear out his love--that it would not may seem obvious, but I mention it anyway.

Yesterday he was chipper, chatty, his usual self, and he offered to take me for my basal cell surgery Wednesday--with his daughter Carolyn, of course, because it wouldn't be proper for just the two of us to ride alone in a car. He told me again about his recent skin adventures. This was the second time he had told me, and I won't be surprised if he tells me again when he sees me after my surgery. A red head, George has had many skin adventures, I'm sure, in his 83 years. I thanked him for his offer and declined.

We talked more as I placed my food items on the moving belt. Then I noticed the Star Trek-like gizmo attached to his left ear. "George," I said. "You're wired."

"Oh, yes," he said. "I'm a real tech-y."

I told him he is very cool.

I knew he had a cell phone now. It's Carolyn's way of keeping track of him, making sure he's okay. But the ear piece is new. Very direct, her calls going immediately into his ear. Carolyn, a nurse, is working nights, he told me, and calls him in the morning when she gets off work before she goes home. Just to know that he's okay.

It's a good idea, I say, as long as he remembers to put the thing on.