I’ve not been writing about my ninety-four year old neighbor recently because circumstances have changed wildly.

We had been taking walks together twice daily until about ten weeks ago when he fell while doing errands with his family. Nothing broke, but he suffered a deep bruise and pain that he had never felt before.

He has no children and his wife of many years died in 2019 so he has a grand niece who loves him like a daughter and arranges care for him. Maybe too much care in this circumstance. Suddenly his bed was switched for a hospital bed, his PT was switched to nurses , and his walked switched to a wheelchair. He is told not to try and walk or even exercise (because he will then think it’s so he can walk).

He looks at me with eyes that say, “This is too much, but they mean well.”

Once he said, “I guess I’m just supposed to sit here, get old, rot and die now.”

I know how hard it is to see love ones in pain, but I wonder if, in this circumstance, the path should have respected more of how my neighbor always lived his life- he always pushed and kept going. He wanted to keep pushing and going still but has been swarmed by good-meaning family who saw the last fall as the step toward active dying.

I visit him most every day. I try and make him laugh about something. I usually succeed.

He and I Iook at one another now and then and our eyes say, “Yeah, this could be different.”