Do You Remember?

Today we find our 80-something heroines, Rose and Dawn in the waiting room of the hospital. The girls are nervously awaiting word about their friend Janet.

“I know it’s not a serious surgery for Jan, but I’m still worried,” Rose opined. 

“My father used to say that the only ‘minor’ surgery is on someone else.” 

Dawn tried to smile at Rose’s attempt at lightheartedness. “I know honey. It’s just a scope looking down Jan’s throat. Nope…  No Matter how much I say that, I can’t make it sound ‘minor’.”

Both women resumed their perusal of the magazines from four years ago found on the tables in the waiting room. 

Rose lifted her eyes from the old news and noticed other people in ‘surgery limbo’ looking at their phones and typing frantically on them with their thumbs. 

“Dawnie, have you ever tried to send a text on your phone? You know, like the kids do?” 

Rose looked quizzically at Dawn. “Well, I don’t think my phone can do that. It’s just for talking on. My daughter said I need a ‘smartie phone’ in order to be able to text,” Dawn announced.

Rose thought for a minute. “Yah. I wonder if we’re ‘smartie’ enough at our age for one of those things.” This made both women smile. Just then, a door at the far end of the hallway opened and a smart-looking, handsome woman walked through still dressed in her surgical garb. She marched straight toward Rose and Dawn with such determination that the girls leaned back heavily in their seats worrying that she would walk right through them.

Instead, the woman stopped dead in front of them and with a strangely soft voice for her purposeful appearance asked if they were Janet’s friends. 

“Why, yes, we are. Are you her nurse?” Dawn tentatively asked. “I’m Dr. Janeway. I’m her doctor for the scope procedure and I just want you to know that she did fine. We’ve completed the surgery and she’s in recovery right now.”

 Both girls sighed with grateful relief at the pretty, young doctor. “Thank you so much, Doctor. We are so relieved. Is she awake yet?” 

“Probably just coming out of the light sedation. She should be back to her old self in a few hours, but you never can tell with the elderly. It might take a little longer. Either way, she did just fine.” With that the young woman bounded off to other waiting friends and family with the same determination as she approached Rose and Dawn.

 “The ELDERLY?” Rose snarled. 

“Did she say Janet was elderly?” “I think she did call Janet elderly. How rude,” Dawn responded in an affronted way. “Of all the nerve. How dare she refer to us…I mean, Janet as…wait a minute, we’re the same age, aren’t we? That means she sees US as elderly. Boy, this just got real personal,” Rose carped.

“Rose, we are in our 9th decade. Maybe we are considered elderly in the overall scheme of things. I mean, we’re definitely not as young as we used to be.” 

Dawn felt a bit sad as she said these words to her best friend. Rose looked down at her ‘sensible’ Naturalizer shoes and then looked up at Dawn with a tear in her eye. 

“Do you remember when we used to wear platform shoes and dance all night, Dawnie? Remember when we worked all day and then went home and fixed dinner for the family? And I mean DINNER. Not some throw-in-the-microwave slop.”

 “I remember.” Dawn sighed. 

“Do you remember when we used to walk around Greenlake with our church group? That seems like it was just yesterday.” 

Rose laughed a slightly downhearted laugh. “That was 30 years ago, Dawn!” 

“Oh dear. But I remember it so clearly.”

By this time the girls were busily recounting all of their shared experiences from the 50 years that they had been friends. The giggles were followed by tears and the inevitable consoling of one another. The time flew by and when they looked back out into the waiting room as they wiped the happy tears from their eyes, there was an entirely new bunch of ‘friends and family’ waiting for loved ones in surgery.

 “Oh no, Rose,” Dawn snapped out of her reverie. “We forgot about Janet. I hope she’s not worried that we left without her.” Rose cackled at the remark and looked at Dawn with a sly eye. 

“She’s probably too elderly to remember that we’re her ride home.”

Diana Couture's series, The Ongoing, Life-Affirming Adventures of Rose and Dawn, was inspired by Diana Couture’s aunt and her aunt’s best friend. This colorful column was born when she set about telling these dear octogenarians’ true-life experiences. Rose and Dawn remain perennial 80-somethings to this day. Diana's entertaining Italian family continues to inspire her to write; the stories literally come from what happens to Diana, her friends and family.