I had just drifted off at Mikey’s sister’s place in Fargo on Sunday night when I got the call. Our intention was to leave days earlier, but we were getting the runaround from Smart Talk, a cheap Walmart phone company who promised that our phone would arrive on Wednesday. We were still phone-less four days later.

“Mom’s in the hospital. She’s gonna be okay, but she took a pretty bad fall hiking at Spirit Mountain . . . she broke her leg.”

My mind raced. In that split second I pictured her sliding off a cliff and landing with a hard thud on the ground, twisted.

“It broke clean off in the same place she broke it when she was sixteen. They need a specialist to look at it in the morning.”

Clean off. Those words rang in my ears.

We’ve hiked Spirit Mountain many times; the path runs deep in the woods with roots running like veins over boulders and clear, rocky streams. I pictured her staring up at the leaves, the birds flying blithely from the branches, oblivious.

“We’ll be right home.”

We threw everything into the camper, arriving a little past three am. It was like a strange dream to be back (we live in a Tiny House on wheels on my parent’s property—but that’s another blog in itself), pulling into the driveway, dogs running out to see us, everything in the same place we left it.

We spent the better part of three days in the hospital. I wanted to be close to her, so I scooted next to her on her hospital bed, talking about Fargo and Bubba and our plans. I talked a while and, after I realized she was not registering what I was saying, asked, “What’s the matter?” and she replied, politely, “Honey . . .you’re sitting on my tubes.”  ­­­­

We all were surprised and forever changed by what happened next. Mom got a roommate. Her name was Margaret, she had the same surgery, and she was eighty-eight years old.

“You’re 57? Aw, you’re just a kid!”

This is the first thing she said to mom. She also said that to anyone under the age of 87.  She was a volunteer at a nursing home up north in the same town where we bought our scamp. Let me re-iterate: she volunteered. She had the insight and presence of­—I don’t even know—I can’t compare her to someone our age because they are forever on to the next thing, all entertainment addicts. She had the cool composure and easy conversational style of a jazz singer, even though she was a gray-haired great-great grandmother from the Range. In those three days we discussed her childhood, bearing nine children, crank telephones, and how crazy modern times have become. She was especially important to my mom when, late at night, they would cry together through the thin curtain between them.

I felt so inspired by her. She had a twisted arm and a bruised head from her fall, yet she made light of every situation. She would flirt with the nurses and offer insight to our conversations when we thought she wasn’t listening (she had super hearing).  In reality, her light presence even changed the way our family interacted. We would take turns sitting over with her to talk, and I actually learned a lot about my dad from listening to their conversations.

Margaret had adopted her first grandchild when she was five months pregnant. Rearing both at the same time, she would scoff at those who questioned if both the children were, in fact, hers.

“Of course they’re mine!” she would say, “and then I would just walk away. There is no reason for people to ask such personal questions, and even so, they are indeed MY children. I don’t need to discuss further.”

Her conviction was infectious. It makes me sad to think of how often we dismiss the elderly, thinking that there is nothing there behind those blinking eyes except milky white clouds. We see someone in a wheelchair at 80, 90, whatever, and we often will crouch down and talk to them like a child. How unfair it is to live through so much; wars, depression, cloth diapers and equal rights, only to reach an age where you are dismissed; sitting on the sidelines as we all walk by.

When it was time for her to go she had three hospital staff help her into her wheelchair. They turned her away from us, towards the door, discussing medical charts.

“I need you to turn me around, I need to say goodbye to my friends—” she said in her soft spoken tone. When they failed to notice she said it again, and after the third time Mike and I walked around to say our goodbyes.

Her eyes were red with tears. “Isn’t life crazy? I love you. I love you.” she said as we leaned down to hug her. She pulled me close with her one good arm—a real hug. “I love you” she said again to Mike, and pleaded with the attendants, “I need you to TURN me around so I can say goodbye to my FRIEND.”

They finally did, and mom said, “It’s kind of like we’re kindred spirits . . . we went through so much together—”

She nodded, wiping tears from her eye. “I love you” she said, reaching out with her hand.  And then she was gone.

The clearness in her eyes reminded me of a saying by Virginia Woolf:

“. . . how I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters; I think that gives exactly what I want; humanity, humor, depth.  The idea is that the caves shall connect, & each comes to daylight at the present moment”

I think of the caves we inhabit inside our own heads; and if only we all could claw our way up to the light, what a different world it would be.