Toting a couple of very heavy packages from the crowded local post office parking lot to the building, my back hurt but the Christmas smile was on my face and the cheer was bubbling inside my veins. 

As I approached the automatic doors, a “person in a hurry” rushed past a small woman barely pushing a walker.  I waited for the lady with the ninety-degree spine bent over her walker and shuffling at a snail’s pace to precede me through the doors.  My face must have registered anger at the woman who had previously pushed past her, along with sadness that she was so bent over and crippled.  She turned to me with a smile on her face and said, “Don’t feel bad for me.  I just did this playing football.”  We both laughed and entered the building.

A younger woman approached and asked if she could help me with my packages. I told her I would be fine, but she insisted and carried them inside and put them on the railing where I would be next in line. We exchanged “Merry Christmas’s”, not “Happy Holidays” or “Greetings of the Season.”

I left the building thinking how great it was not to feel the need to be politically correct anymore and grateful that at age seventy-seven, I could still carry heavy packages, get out and about without a walker or wheelchair and that my spine was still straight.  I know, I know, with the boobie and belly “droop and hang” posture, it appears that I’m bent over, but my spine is still in a straight line, folks.  Just those aforementioned body parts don’t stand at attention anymore.