“What do you think about this necklace?” I asked Mr. Moon when he visited my garden window on the first night after the recent rains stopped.
Of course, we both knew it was not a necklace but an emergency alert device in case someone, that would be me, fell in their home when no one was around, and needed help.
“The more important question is, ‘What do you think about it?’” Mr. Moon said in his always-wise way of getting to the heart of a subject. He knew I had been looking at ER alert systems since my recent fall.
We had discussed the fact that I said that since I hadn’t been alone when I fell, I hadn’t needed an alert system.
“You know you’re too smart for that,” Mr. Moon replied before he asked me to put the kettle on for tea. “Looks like I’m going to be here for a while,” he continued with that half-moon smile he saved for when I was being stubborn.
As I was getting two tea cups from the cupboard, he asked me what my real objection was to an alert system that could safeguard me in a time of need. Maybe even save my life.
“What kind of tea tonight?” I asked.
“Stop avoiding the question, Patricia. This is serious. It’s about your well-being.”
I actually didn’t have an answer for him. It was a “mis-mosh” of things.
Yes, he said, that’s what keeps so many people from doing it.
My dear friend and retired nurse, Suzy, had talked to me about this when I was in the hospital. In her quiet soothing tone, she had suggested it would be a wise move for me and a relief for the people who loved me. Especially my daughter.
“Meet me at the library window seat,” I said to Mr. Moon as I exited the kitchen with two cups of tea on the tray of my walker. There, in the room that soothed me, surrounded by my best-friend books, I lowered myself onto the window seat cushion and imagined what it might be like if I fell in this room. I would be surrounded by volumes of knowledge, all unable to help me.
“Not a pretty picture, eh,” Mr. Moon said, reading my thoughts.
“I’m going to take my leave now,” he added, smiling. “I think you know what you have to do.”
I pushed my walker over to the computer and sent an email to Suzy and my daughter:
“I think it’s time for me to get an emergency alert system.”
Email Patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her at PatriciaBunin.com