Josephine Falco Schopp

Josephine so values her independence that her body is failing, now that she can definitely no longer live alone. She is not a demonstrative woman, neither strong nor composed, but she has been brave, competent and even occasionally funny as she confronts life alone in the twenty-first century. She has been a widow for more than a decade. She outlived her eldest daughter. She functions highly for an octagenarian who broke her back, arm, leg over a period of years, and who elects to smoke instead of exercise, to watch the Lady Huskies and Dancing with the Stars instead of joining a senior citizen center. She expresses disbelief that working people would vote Republican. She and my grandfather, children of immigrants, who had their own business, briefly, supported Democratic candidates, labor unions and social reforms. She wants to talk, but has no one to listen. Another daughter who only calls. Doctors who only hear her babble. If I saw her feebly buying a newspaper at Stop and Shop I would wonder why no one was minding this old woman; and yet she smiles to her everyday companions, the pharmacists and adolescents who never left their after school jobs. I have grown to admire her and like her much more than I would have expected. We drive around my home town. She showed me the beach I've known since I was a toddler swimmer. We talk about food and black and white movies. I discover family stories I'd never been told. I will miss her old bones when they are gone, and they are going, she is soon to be among our any dead. I will miss her very wrinkled face, raspy voice and unexpected wisdoms. I wish I could believe she and my mother will be together in heaven. There is no comfort in such a lack of faith. Only, I do think I have swallowed some part of her, somewhere between now and my birth. I hope this knowledge provides some solace when Josephine is finally, forever gone.