Myra turned 92 this year. Too old to be doing head stands (unless you’re Swedish — and she’s from Boston, not Borgholm). Too dignified tobe manhandled by three burly types. Too sensitive to chills to be wandering about outside in January. With bones too fragile to be jumping off stair landings. Still, ever the stoic, she endured all of these challenges — well, most. 

Myra’s early days are shrouded in some mystery, despite the ID she still proudly flashes with date of birth and home town address, ‘tattooed’ in gold for all to see. We’re not sure how she found her way across the border. But we do know she’s been in Canada a good long time. And has moved around a fair bit. As with any well-travelled nonagenarian, she’s had her share of hard treatment — likely at the rough and untutored hands of students; not mean-spirited or ill-intentioned, merely lacking the nuanced and acquired touch a lady of her breeding deserves. It’s hard to say when she had the implants — or even why. Best guess is to buffer the daily poundings, the compassionate act of a headmaster somewhere, eager to keep his staff intact.

We are reasonably assured that she spent some extended recovery time by the water, Niagara-on-the-Lake, if passport serves. Must have been quite an adjustment. Now days, if not weeks of idle time, more admired than engaged, included more for her beauty — which had not especially faded — than her conversation and contribution. An easy life, but humdrum and tiresome.She worried about her voice and her agility, one becoming shrill, brittle, the other sluggish and awkward. Could there not be some middle-ground in this life?

What we do know is that a back street clinic was her next port of call. A small operation, definitely not mainstream, run with more enthusiasm than skill by a pair of Italian brothers. Some quicky cosmetics restored a fading and lined complexion. Joints were tightened — or loosened and pins inserted as needed. Sadly, as with most marginal enterprises, surgeries are performed with materials at hand, more of a ‘MASH’ unit.  Good for appearances, the short haul, and back in the firing line. 

My wife saw the notice advertising ‘available services’, and called on a whim. And so Myra came to live with us. Some short-lived ignominy, briefly legless and forced to lie on her side for the trip from the Toronto cold-water flat to Stratford, she was welcomed into our home lovingly and with great anticipation. A few false starts with consultants, all with opinion, varying in inverse proportion  to their knowledge base, as to what might be ailing our aging house guest — then finally a diagnosis; or more properly two or three. Some serious bridge work and the surgical removal of several pounds of lead (no doubt left overs from her time at the front). Her voice steadied and strengthened and her nimble step returned.  

Oh to be left to spend her remaining years coddled with regular physicals, visited for long, intense, and daily sojourns, and allowed to preside over the occasional soiree as the grand dame that she is. But alas it was not to be so. Her employer was downsizing. Not that she would be relegated to some church basement or retirement home. But she was going to have to moveone last time.  

The news was, as unexpected tidings generally are, unwelcomed. ‘She’ll go in — but she won’t be leaving’. A robust gal of girth near the measure of her length, the options dwindled. ‘With the staircase out, we could drop her — but a sky hook or a chain saw would be her only exit visa’. No more indignities, please! A wee room (with a view, mind you) on the main floor seemed Myra’s last hope. On a painfully cold day in January, the lads arrived, sighed — and went about their business. On her head, a  short trip to the john across the hall and, inch by painful inch turning that crucial corner. ‘She won’t go’ supplanted by a ‘get under her and smooth the rug’ and. . . she was in. A studio, at last to call her own. Tears of pain and relief her anointing. Bless you Myra. You may rest at last.