Beginning to End

I sit at the front window in my rocking chair. If I am reading, I see nothing that happens on our street. In fact, even when I sit facing the front steps and the stoop, I am unaware of a visitor standing at the door until she rings our (loud) doorbell.

 

So for me reading trumps paying attention. But I don't always read with such intensity. On some days I read a paragraph and then I raise my head and look out the window, where wonders await, even on our predictable, ordinary street.

 

For the past few months an elderly man has walked past our window every day with his caregiver. I call him, just to give him a name, Harold. He slowly pushes his walker along the sidewalk, his caregiver by his side. Occasionally he stops for a rest.

 

Half a block away from us, beside the subway entrance, is a small day-care. In good weather the teachers and aides take the little ones out for some air, and sometimes they walk along our street.

 

One day I looked up from my reading and saw life itself, from start to finish, before my eyes. On our side of the street were Harold and his helper, Harold leaning on the walker as he took a break from his exercise. On the other side of the street, headed in the opposite direction, was the day-care parade: four super-sized strollers, each holding three or four little ones (under 18 months), bundled up to the eyeballs in winter clothing. Each day-care aide pushed a giant stroller and at the same time tended to a few ambulatory older children, who clutched the hem of the aide's jacket as she used both hands to push the heavy stroller. When this long group was just opposite my window they too stopped to rearrange or reorganize the babies.

 

So there before my eyes were the end of life and the start of life, both groups supported by wheels. Harold and his helper, taking a breather, watched the little ones, but the little ones took no notice of Harold, focused as they were on their own needs and their immediate surroundings. Nor did their caregivers see him, for they were too busy to see anything but their charges.

 

Only I, with my little eye, could spy both groups at once and take note of their superficial similarities and their equally superficial differences. Just two points along the continuum of life.

 

 

Copyright 2013 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com