is my 97-year-old neighbor who lives two houses up, and continues 

to amaze me: living on her own, preparing her meals, except for dinner 

which she has delivered by some company in the city. She goes out at least 

three days per week to buy food at the corner market, using a small suitcase 

on wheels to carry the stuff back up to her house. She also takes the bus 

to a church over in The Castro where she plays different table games 

and converses with all kinds of people. And here the top part of her body 

is almost parallel to the ground when she walks–yet she pushes on undaunted, 

somehow, someway…

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And when I stop to talk with her, she is always upbeat, usually asking me 

questions about what I’ve been doing, and then telling me her perspective 

on events going on in the world, which she keeps informed about through 

TV or radio. Sometimes she will tell me bits and pieces of what it was like 

to work at San Francisco General Hospital as an administrator for so many years.

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Recently, while sitting and talking with her in front of her house, at some point 

she said to me, “You know. . . I’ll soon be with the angels!” To which I responded, 

“That’s still a long way off. Heck, you’re in better shape than I am. I’ll be with them long before you!”

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Which made her laugh for close to a minute, displaying what I thought were most of her natural teeth…