Ninety Degrees on the 5th of May

Ninety degrees on the 5th of May.

The old lady at the bus stop sat in the sweltering heat with two plastic bags of groceries at her feet and an umbrella across her lap. She wore a large floppy straw hat and fanned herself with a magazine but even from a distance I could see the sheen of perspiration on her face and neck. Her house dress was wilted and sweated through in places but she smiled at me as I passed and gave me a slight nod. The bus arrived and she rose from the bench, gathered her possessions and climbed aboard, wincing slightly at each step she took in her well worn flip flops. I saw that her toenails were painted bright red, in odd contrast to her otherwise plain and sensible dress and patent leather black purse. She might have been in her 60's or in her 90's or anywhere in between, a little weary and a little arthritic but still up and about and doing her daily shopping, still able to smile at a stranger and climb aboard a city bus to get home. We do what we have to do, I remembered my grandmother telling me, Who ever told you life would be easy or fair?

It was a kinder and gentler version of Life's A Bitch And Then You Die, I suppose. Nana was never overburdened with sympathy when practicality and problem solving would do - she more or less accepted her lot in life and made the best of it, wasting no time on the hopeless or the inevitable. People had their place in life, she believed, a purpose and a destiny - some were born to struggle and be poor, some were born to greatness, most were born to get along the best they could. Well off don't mean happy, she often said, and poor don't always mean misery. She had no time to listen to the complaints of the bitter or discontented and especially not to the self pitying, Just get on with it and be done! she would snap at my mother, You think you're the only one with troubles?

The old woman settled herself in a window seat and the bus rumbled off, leaving a cloud of exhaust behind. I doubted my grandmother had ever ridden a bus but if she had, she definitely would have had a window seat or there'd have been hell to pay.