The woman looked just like a friend of mine. I didn't mean to stare at her. She was shopping in Walmart as I was. I smiled at her and went on my way, remembering my friend, Christina. I called her Chris. She passed away last March. I had attended her funeral, so I knew it wasn't her in Walmart, yet she looked so much like Chris, it seemed eerie.
My friend, Chris, was an older lady, almost 90 years old, a sweet little Scottish lady, maybe weighing 100 pounds, with a marvelous sense of humor. I've really been missing her. "They" say everyone has a double out there. Who are "they" that say that, anyway? If it's true, I guess this was her double. She would have laughed to know she had a double. I wonder if her double had the same wonderful sense of humor.
One thing I've learned in life is it's really good to know someone who has a great sense of humor. I don't mean being silly all the time, just one who has the right word every now and then that takes some of the seriousness out of the serious side of life and helps others find some humor in it. My friend Chris was like that.
She admitted to nodding off in church, which made me smile. She regarded church as an important part of her life, but had difficulty hearing even after having two hearing aids customized for her. I understood, since I have a hearing impairment also. I would not have blamed her for nodding off in church at all.
Chris had a few other idiosyncrasies that made her charming. Both knees gave her problems as she suffered with arthritis. The humidity in the area didn't help. She walked with a cane. I teased her about it: which leg needed the support from one cane? She chose to walk two blocks from her parked car in the spill-over parking lot to the church instead of watching and waiting for an empty space to open up from the earlier service as some of us did. Often, while chatting after the church service, I'd drive Chris to her car. She'd tease me that I was chauffeuring her to her car.
Commenting on my outfit at church one Sunday after service, Chris touched my sleeve and asked me, "Is this material felt?" Slightly embarrassed, I named some synthetic fabric I suspected was in my jacket, but she smiled and added, "Well, it's felt now!"
Some Sundays, if she didn't already have a meal waiting for her from Meals on Wheels or expecting a phone call from her son who lived out of state, I was able to persuade her to join me at McDonald's for a cheeseburger and a milk shake. Although I learned that I was twelve years younger than she, we discovered that we had experienced so many of the same things in our lives. It was strangely coincidental; she had worked in a hospital as a clerk, I had worked as a clerk in a doctor's office. Chris had raised her children in the north and moved to the south years later, the same with me. She and her husband had traveled to Mexico and the Caribbean, the same with my husband and myself. She was retired from work, so was I, she was a widow lady, as I was, also. It seemed the more we talked about ourselves, the more we had in common, we could have been each others' shadow.
At special church dinners, we sat together and enjoyed the bounteous covered dish buffets and the social gatherings. She made me laugh as she observed how few deviled eggs and rolls she had brought were left after the meals. Then, she'd wrap a small paper napkin with a few cookies and pack them in her purse to take home for a snack later, one of each kind, chocolate chip and iced oatmeal raisin and expressed to me whether she should have gotten two of the iced oatmeal raisin instead of the chocolate chip.
Because we were both alone at Christmas, I asked Chris to spend Christmas day with me, and she accepted. I drove to her house to pick her up, and she showed me inside her lovely small home that she had carefully decorated for Christmas. Sitting in the center of her dining table was a chubby, stuffed white snowman wearing a big red bow around his neck and a black top hat on his little round head. She said he was a Christmas gift from her neighbor. Her dining chair backs were red covers with red sashes tied in the back. In her living room, her wall bookcases bore scalloped strings of festive multicolored Christmas lights, all lit for the holiday. Then, she presented me with a small Christmas-wrapped box of goodies. Among the items were Hershey's chocolate kisses, Scotch plaid dish towels, and a matching pot holder. The little attached card read "From Santa". I can't use the dish towels without thinking of her.
I drove Chris to my home and served her some sweet iced tea and set a large bowl of chips and dip before her on my coffee table. She began digging into it while I heated and served up our dinner plates. Previously, I had purchased a small turkey breast, cranberry sauce, string beans and had cooked up potatoes, baked the turkey, made gravy, cooked everything ahead of time, so it was easy just to brown the rolls and heat our meal. I went to her and announced that dinner was served, but Chris said, pointing to the almost empty dip bowl, "I thought that was dinner."
After dinner, I announced to Chris that because we had eaten so much, "Now, we have to walk off all those calories, so we'll have some room for dessert." Chris looked at me as if I'd lost my mind. Of course, I knew her dilemma with both her knees. I also had a bad knee, a torn cartilage from a fall and a little osteo-arthritis. I needed to use a walker on the sidewalks in my neighborhood. I rolled my walker toward her and pointed to the padded low seat and beckoned her to have a seat there. I said, "I'm taking you for a ride around my neighborhood, ok?" Chris smiled sweetly at me and asked, "Ok, how how's this going to work?" I volunteered, "I'm going to push you around on my walker". Her brows knitted as if asking me, "Are you sure you can do this?" She knew I wasn't a spring chicken, either.
Carefully, I pushed her up the sidewalk to the community pool, and we talked and looked at the puffy white clouds in the clear afternoon sky and admired the sparkling water in the pool, which was too cold for swimming. It was an unheated pool but the weather was temperate, comfortable for us in light jackets, and no one else was about. My neighbors were probably visiting with their families inside their home or away for the holidays.
We had the whole area to ourselves. I teased her about going for a swim. Chris admitted she didn't know how to swim, and jokingly added that she didn't bring her bikini.
I continued our walk down toward the adjacent pond, and we entered the gazebo on the premises. I stopped the walker inside and parked it near the open rail where we viewed the visiting tropical birds, the ibis and the egrets pecking along the edge of the pond. What a lovely visit we had in the park-like atmosphere, enjoying the mild breezes in the mid-70s temperature, and neither of us was alone at home by ourselves on this fine Christmas day in Florida.
After we ate slices of homemade pumpkin pie and several cookies, I presented Chris with a small "take-home" bag for her evening snack. I drove her back home, walked to her door with her, gave her a hub and wished her "Merry Christmas!"
On Sundays into the new year, we continued our little tete-a-tetes at McDonald's when she could. On the Sundays when she missed attending church, I sometimes called her at home, thinking maybe she slept in late or just felt lazy, telling her I missed her smiling face.
One Sunday, in early March, I missed seeing her at church. Later, I learned that was the Sunday she passed away.
My church program had announced a ladies fashion show was to be held the following Saturday. On Tuesday afternoon, I called the church office to inquire about the tickets. I wanted to reserve two, one for Chris and one for myself. When I explained the purpose of the second ticket, the church secretary asked, "You don't mean Christina….?" I said, "Yes," suspiciously. "She passed away last weekend. There was a notice in the newspaper this morning." Since I didn't subscribe, I hadn't known. Thinking it had to be a mistake, I spelled her name, recited her address, questioned her again with disbelief, but the secretary had the information at her fingertips and read the obituary to me. Chris's neighbor, who checked on her from time to time had found Chris on the floor of her home, a victim of a stroke over that previous weekend. That's why she had not attended church on Sunday. If only I had known. Maybe I could have helped her, maybe I could have rushed her to the hospital. Maybe there was no time, maybe it was her time. I had wanted to take Chris to the fashion show. I had wanted to see her again, laugh with her again, enjoy time with her again.
At church, two months after she had deceased, I wondered if she was up there in Heaven laughing at us down below while the congregation gathered in the open doorways after the service and watched the pouring rain come down, waiting for it to slacken off before going to our cars. The thunder and lightning had been noisy during the service and with the strong winds, an umbrella would not have been much protection. She might have commented that our cars got a needed washing, and some of us might have needed a shower, too.
Talking with my friends and observing their varied personalities, some greatly involved with their families, their work, their health, their cars, their houses, few of them, I noticed, possess this rare quality to find much humor in their lives. Friends laugh when I say something funny, but few have that humorous thought and express it when it occurs to them as Chris did.
Life has shown me that everyone has their ups and downs, good days and bad, frustrations, disappointments, all kinds of stress. Before I met Chris, my life had become so serious.
Seeing that older lady in Walmart who resembled my friend Chris brought back to me a lot of wonderful memories. Chris was a special friend. She brought youthful fun into my life. Fun, laughter. I'd almost forgotten about fun, almost forgotten about enjoying my life, sharing laughter. One important thing that Chris taught me is to let the light of our lives shine through to others and somehow, if we can keep a sense of humor about us, we can all enjoy happier lives for ourselves.
