Time's Scythe

I stood atop the stairs that overlook the parking area, watched a stooped, white-haired lady inch along with her walker, white hair and coat amid the sea of black asphalt. I grew tired, even watching her, then descended the stairs and crossed the asphalt into the laundry room assuaging my mind with the cliche, 'She must be so patient! ' and thinking that was the end of that. Coming back out of the laundry room five minutes later, I passed her sitting on her walker to rest. 'You have to be so patient! ' I said pleasantly in the necessity of conversation. 'I must have been behind a door, the day they gave out patience! ' she replied, and told me of three surgeries that have left her this way for the past three years. 'So I just go on like this, ' she smiled, as gracious as a hostess. 'Are you getting more patient? ' I asked, hoping to hear someone, somewhere reporting palpable progress at something. 'Ask my husband about that! ' she said, and I walked back up the stairs with my still-good legs, having heard from her exactly what I would say were our positions reversed, and the stairs were like the years to when I may indeed be standing in her shoes.