Stick a Fork In Me!

Word of the Day Sunday, January 24, 2010

frangible

\FRAN-juh-buhl\ , adjective;

1. Capable of being broken; brittle; fragile; easily broken.

She slowly pushed the walker a few feet ahead and shuffled along behind it. Her grandchildren moving almost in slow motion to keep up with her agonizing pace. It was sweet of them, really, to come by and take her out to lunch every Saturday. Most of her neighbors within the retirement village didn't see their children and grandchildren that often. But at times their presence was almost enough to suffocate her with the slightly patronizing tone of voice, and how they presented choices to her like she was a child. Sure, she knew that she was stooped over with osteoporosis, and that she had a hard time remembering all the little details (and some of the big details), but watching them be so careful of her, gingerly handling her and her frangible body just made her want to scream at them.

Every Saturday when they brought her back to her room, promising to be by on time the following week, she would smile and wave and once they were gone she would quickly pull out her photo albums. The photos from way back when, when her body had been lithe and strong. It was almost as if she were rinsing the morning of being weak and feeble away from her mind. She would pour over the pictures from the lake, swimming with all of her brothers, splashing and racing in the water for hours. Her favorite picture, taken by Bobby, before they had even become a couple, was of her pulling herself up onto the edge of the dock. The sunlight reflecting off a thousand droplets of water around her, the photo slightly blurred by the motion of her body being effortlessly launched into the air, and the daring, fierce, triumphant look of joy in her dark eyes set ablaze with a dazzling smile.

Before her fall, the subsequent broken foot, followed by the endless therapy and set backs with her recovery, she had tried out the water aerobics class a few times at the community pool Gingerly mading her way into the pool an inch at a time, clutching the handrails with a death grip the entire way. It was only when that fat pig Jonica, who thought she was such hot shit because she was one of the entertainment coordinators on movie night, had made some comment about being the fastest swimmer back when she was in high school that she finally snapped.

"You still have the right stuff, Jonica?" she had asked haughtily.

"Of course," Jonica had scoffed.

"Prove it," she had taunted.

Oh! It had been so exhilarating! All the other women in the class had just stared at them as they started to splash their way across the pool. The teacher had been scolding them to stop from the cement deck, but they both ignored her. It was only when Merrill had shouted, "You get her Peggy!" that she knew she was going to pull ahead and touch the ledge first. And in her mind's eye, what the lifeguard on the other side of the pool saw was a triumphant and joy filled pair of dark eyes surrounded by a wall of shimmering light.