Evelyn is one of my best friends. She makes a mean potato salad, always remembers that I love butter cookies at Christmas, has a candy dish perpetually filled with chocolates, and lets me hide at her house when things here get to be too much.
In return, I happily fetch her mail with mine, tuck her newspaper in the front door each morning, weed the flower beds, mow her lawn, and my son takes out her trash.
Why? She's 92 years old. Her mind is sharp, but her body is frail. She has taken several falls in the past year, one semi-serious. She can't lift her left arm higher than her shoulder, and she recently had a bout with bladder cancer.
We were talking yesterday and she told me that her daughter's friends think it's time for her to be "forced" into assisted living or moving in with one of her daughters. I must admit, I'd feel safer if she'd allow us to rearrange her furniture so that her bedroom was on the first floor, but she refuses any and all offers that hint at her failing independence.
I don't know who is right, but I know that I'm not arguing with a woman who has been around since houses had no running water or electricity, fed her children from the vegetable garden in her yard, makes her own clothes, and got a cardinal tattooed on her ankle for her 90th birthday.
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