Now I Can’t Eat Tofu?

I watch my nephews, both young adults, eat a whole pizza covered in cheese, sausage and pepperoni, with a side of French fries, and think: You don’t know how lucky you are. Youth, as they say, is wasted on the young who can eat anything they want without getting sick, without worrying it will raise their cholesterol levels or cause acid reflux, and without gaining weight. 

The older we get, the more restrictions we face in life: not driving at night, especially in heavy city traffic; avoiding extreme exercise because our knees (or back or hips—insert appropriate physical issue) are worn out; and avoiding late dinners or concerts because we’re just too darned tired. But one of the hardest is having to cut back on our favorite foods because of health issues. When you can’t do other things, eating becomes one of life’s small pleasures, as many people discovered during the pandemic.

Many years ago, a doctor told me to stop eating dairy because it was creating sinus problems. So I switched to soy or almond milk, and stopped eating cheese, which was not easy because cheese adds taste to almost everything, including my favorite Mexican meals. But it wasn’t worth the clogged sinuses and headaches, unless I was in England, where making cheese is an art.   

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Unnecessary Cruelty

What kind of world do we live in where police officers appear to take great delight in using force to arrest a 73-year-old woman with dementia? The story of the Loveland woman has made it around the world now, with good reason. For the offense of walking out of a Wal-Mart without paying for $14 worth of items, police slammed Karen Garner to the ground, hogtied her and took her to a jail cell where she was handcuffed and left alone for six hours. Police apparently made no effort to call her family.  

Not only did the officers appear to use unnecessary force, as shown in a video, but later, at the station, they are shown watching the video of the arrest and laughing at the noise—the “pop”— that happened after the officers dislocated her shoulder, as if they were proud of having subdued and hurt a frail woman. Garner also suffered from a fractured arm and sprained wrist, and her family reports that her dementia has gotten worse since her encounter with police officers.

Garner likely left the Wal-Mart without paying because she forgot; memory loss is part of dementia. When an employee stopped her, she offered to pay for the items, but instead the employee called the police. This seems unnecessarily callous, as Garner walked from her home to this Wal-Mart every day, so employees must have known her. Why is there no room for forgiveness, for leniency? Has the world really become this harsh and judgmental?

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The Tree Outside My Window

In the last years of my parents’ lives, they lived in a small apartment in a senior-living facility in a neighborhood that was short on natural beauty. To one side was a mobile home park; on the other was a townhouse development. Two blocks to the north was a six-lane highway bordered by huge office complexes. Yet between the townhouse development and the senior facility was a row of trees. Because this was the Midwest, they were oaks and maples mostly—broad and tall trees with many arching limbs.

My father, who was mostly confined to his apartment because of a stroke, was able to see one of the trees through a small corner window. Through spring, after he had the stroke, and into fall, he witnessed the rhythm of its life: in April, the first leafing out; in summer, when the tree was fully decked out and brimming with birds and sometimes cicadas; and into October when the maple was brilliant red.

It became his daily touchstone: seeing the tree in the early morning light when the rising sun brushed the top of its branches and in the late afternoon when the setting sun outlined every limb. From his favorite chair in the living room, he could admire developing thunderstorms and delight at how the wind shook the limbs and leaves. When I visited him, he would look at me and point to the tree, as if to say: look, out there is life and beauty, something wondrous.

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