Tear jerker for the week

So I was chatting with a woman I know who is almost 90 years old. She was complaining that her hair needed to get done. I asked her if she went to the beauty parlor that was located in her retirement community. She said no, she goes to a woman she has been going to for oh, 15 years or so. Her son takes her out to her gal. "My son is so sweet. He lifts me up out of my wheelchair and sets me down into the shampoo chair. Then, when the ladies are done with me in the shampoo chair, he lifts me back up and out, and sets me back down in my wheelchair, and my little girl does my hair then, sets it in curlers, you know." I've met her son. He eats breakfast with her every morning. I had an image of him gently picking up his bird-like mother and settling her in her shampoo chair, then gently lifting her back to her wheelchair. This son is taking time out of his no-doubt busy schedule to get his mother to the beauty shop, just so she can keep going to the same little girl who knows how to get her curls sitting just right. I scolded this woman for telling me something that touched me so much. After all, the residents aren't supposed to see the rehab staff cry! She chuckled a little nervously, and said, "Are you saying that you envy me?" I told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was, indeed, a woman to be envied. Then I went to the bathroom and made sure there were no mascara marks all over my face.