Taking Care

I met this beautiful eighty-year-old woman. It had been her birthday the day before. She lives in a two-bedroom house with a terrace, and some painted outside walls. She has a well and a garden that she still works in. The strawberries were twinkling between the green leaves, and the orange fire flowers had grown almost a metre high. She told me how her husband had died thirty years ago, and how life now was not good anymore, because she could not do anything anymore. Take no decisions and not enough action. She was showing me all her crafted blankets, of wool, and cotton, and the costumes she had sewn. She told me her daughter was unhappy about her wearing torn jumpers, because she did not understand what she was keeping the good clothes for. She did not want to dress up because she did not leave the house. Her loom showed a piece of cloth in the making that was white, with the occasional stripe pattern. She was working on the finely-grained cotton towels that are used on the occasion of orthodox burials. She was not angry at her life, or bitter, but when it would be time for her to leave, she would be ready.