High Human Drama

Barbara, her grandson and great-grandson

At just about the time that Edna Kiplagat of Kenya was striding over the finish line to become the women's 2010 winner of the New York City Marathon, Barbara Rodriguez was drawing her last breath in Trinidad. Edison Pena, one of the rescued Chilean miners who was known as 'the runner', was already down to a walk, and Haile Gebrselassie, arguably the world's best distance runner, had pulled up lame on the down ramp of the 59th street bridge, never hitting First Avenue. He shocked everyone by retiring from running on the spot. I had been transfixed by the marathon all morning. In fact, I am transfixed by the marathon every year. It's high human drama because there is nothing in play (or at work) but the human.

Ma (as we call her) had fallen and broken her femur two weeks before. An avalanche of complications quickly followed until she succumbed on Sunday. She was 94. My own paternal grandfather had passed in February of this year, also at age 94. We know that we've had them for a long time, and we know that the time has come for them to go. That's the last of the grandparents for my husband and myself. The other six are long gone; two of them - we never even knew. My son was fortunate to have had great-grandparents for 12 years.

I like being around elderly people. I actually spent this morning with my eighty year old neighbor on the right (the one with the kick-ass vegetable garden). They have distilled their lives down to the essentials. They wash and wear the same pieces of clothing over and over, they walk reverently to the cupboard to fetch a teacup, in fact there is nothing that they do that isn't a prayer. You feel precious and humble just being around them - whether that is due to the esteem of their age and experience or the gratitude that you feel for still being on the (relative) side of youth.

At midnight, on December 31st 2009, I took part in the New York Road Runners annual 4 mile New Years Eve Run. I did a brisk walk which took me about 90 minutes. Maybe I will do it again this year.

Photo: Easter 2007, Trinidad