The Pakistani Spectator

One evening at the beginning of it all the phone rang.

I could tell by her voice that she was distraught and that she had been weeping.

She had left her workplace and instead of turning right she had turned left onto the highway and drove, and drove, and drove.

In that twenty plus mile section of highway there are a minimum of fifty plus sets of traffic lights.

My Nanny was confused, disoriented, frightened.

We were fortunate this time due to the fact that she remembered our phone number.

I was able to find someone to go with me to drive Nan’s car back.

A short time after this the incident repeated itself.

Another twenty mile rescue trip.

Each time she was so relieved when she saw me. That beautiful smile never fails to brighten my day.

During this same time period she had three fender benders and a rear ender in which she tail ended a pickup truck at a stop light.

I said to myself, “Self, something is just a tad wrong here!”

I enrolled Nanny into an AARP driving course, she failed. It seems that she could no longer recognize traffic signs, lights or directions. She had difficulty parking, stopping.

Concensus, no more driving.

We recently went to Wall Mart and Nanny was excited with the idea of driving one of the electric shopping carts. DISASTER!!!

She ran into displays, other shopping carts, and she tried to run down other shoppers!

I couldn’t help but think of Mr. Toad in the charming book, Wind in The Willows. As he was a menace to himself and everyone else so was Nanny.

It is a good thing that there wasn’t a traffic policeman present or she would have been given a ticket for reckless endangerment.

Nan can no longer drive. She doesn’t understand why but that is the cold fact of the matter.

How difficult it must be to lose the ability to do something that you have done for so many years you take it for granted, it has become commonplace.

Just recently I discovered Nancy sitting in the driver’s seat of our pickup truck.

She was dressed, she had her make-up on, and her purse was on the seat beside her.

I walked up to the driver’s window and looked in at her. There she sat, face wet with tears, she was crying.

I opened the door and put my hand on her arm.

She looked at me and smiled that beautiful smile as she said, “I can’t find my keys, have you seen my keys?”