I met Claire for the first time after my deployment to Afghanistan.
I was walking my shiba inu near our apartment, and she intercepted me and said, “What a beautiful dog. He looks like a fox. Gorgeous.” And she bent over to pet Kodi.
Shortly after, I started visiting her apartment on the sixth floor in the evenings after I returned from Fort Lewis, still wearing my beret and Army Combat Uniform, and I’d bring along Kodi and sometimes flowers for her.
When I arrived, she’d say, “Welcome. Oh, my god, what beautiful flowers. Daffodils! Thanks, darling. You’re sweet. Can I fetch you wine? Red or white? No, no, no. I insist. Red. OK. Put up your feet. You’ve had a long day.”
And she’d rush to the kitchen, while I settled into her couch cushions and admired her Oriental rugs and potted plants and piles of books and pictures of the sea. Kodi would come and rest his reddish head on my combat boots, and she’d return with Malbec and say, “So, what are your thoughts on Obama Care? And the Global War on Terror? Iran? Oh, and what did you think about that headline on genetically modified organisms last week? And, yes, I’m an atheist but I still go to church because of the community, you know? Read any good books lately?”
She was a divorced, ninety-four year old woman with two sons and one grandson and she was knowledgeable about almost everything, and I was in awe of her.
***
We were friends while I was depressed. I was finding it difficult to readjust to civilian life after fifteen months in Afghanistan, and I’d broken up with a man I’d dated for almost two years. And I was exhausted all the time.
When I went to visit her in the evening with Kodi and flowers, she’d swarm around her apartment, showing me things.
“So, look at this editorial I published in the Tacoma News Tribune last month. What do you think? Yes, and here’s a picture of my grandson. Isn’t he adorable? Come over here and see the watercolor I drew.”
I followed her around, admiring her stamina. She had more energy at ninety-four than I had at twenty-five. My body felt stiff and sore.
In the mornings, she picked up litter. She’d walk the neighborhood with trash tongs, extracting candy wrappers and beer cans out of gutters and putting them in a bag she carried over one shoulder. One Saturday morning—awake at six a.m. because I was accustomed to the Army schedule—I stood at the window of my fifth floor apartment and watched her pick up trash from the grass between the street and the sidewalk. It was April and overcast and I wondered where her motivation came from.
I continued visiting her once or twice a week for the better part of a year. One day, in November, she told me that she wanted to write an autobiography. “I feel great,” she said. “I feel really great, you know? But my eyes aren’t what they used to be. Even my reading glasses aren’t doing the trick. I wish someone would interview me and help me write my autobiography.”
Her request hung there. One day, glass of wine in hand, she’d asked me, “What is it you love to do?” and leaned in intently, her blue eyes crinkled in interest.
“Writing,” I’d told her. Definitely writing.” And so, that day, I knew she was asking me without asking me.
I remember thinking that I should help Claire write her autobiography. And I remember thinking that I would do it at some arbitrary date in the future when I was less tired and had more energy and more motivation to write.
But I don’t remember thinking about legacy. Or how things get lost if they’re not written down. I write; I should have considered this. But on that day in November I didn’t think about how the only things that outlive us are art and offspring and autobiography.
Then time passed, and I was less tired, and I did have more energy and more motivation. I’d clawed my way out of the woods of depression and, for a time, my life was like lying in an open meadow and it was wonderful again.
I went out with friends a lot. And I took long walks. And I stopped visiting Claire as often. And then seven months went by and I didn’t see her at all.
***
One day in June, I stepped into the elevator of our brick, 1940s building.
The inside was covered in red carpet, and the elevator took almost as long to inch its way to the fifth floor as it took to walk the stairs. I was wearing spandex shorts and a sweaty tank top and a heart rate monitor. I’d just returned from a long run through the leafy, sun-dappled suburbs of Seattle, past silver flashes of Puget Sound. I was training for my first half-ironman, and I was riding an endorphin high. “I feel fucking fantastic,” I said aloud.
I pressed the fifth floor button and the elevator door crept closed. At the last instant, there was a movement in the hallway and a pudgy arm shot between the door and the frame.
A heavy-set woman in a floral blouse and elastic waistband jeans jostled her way onto the elevator. She was gripping the arm of a much shorter, thinner, quieter woman with silver hair.
“What floor?” I asked.
“Sixth,” she replied.
I pressed the button, the door closed, and the elevator started to inch its way upward. Curious, I peered around the woman’s large breasts and obese arms and noticed that the other woman—the much shorter, thinner, quieter woman with silver hair—was Claire.
Claire was looking at the red carpet walls. Her eyes were cloudy.
Something caught in my throat.
“Claire,” I exclaimed.
Claire didn’t saying anything. She continued staring straight ahead. “Claire,” I repeated. Again, there was no response.
The heavy-set woman turned to look at me. “She’s lost a lot of her vision,” she said. “Macular degeneration. She doesn’t recognize people anymore.” She gave me a sympathetic smile.
I wanted to cry then. I wanted to tell the heavy-set woman that she didn’t understand me. Claire was as sharp as a tack seven months ago. She was the smartest woman I knew. I was in awe of her. I thought she was immortal. She showed me how to be strong again. She might not be able to seeme, but why doesn’t she recognize my voice?
But I didn’t cry and I didn’t say these things because I was scared. Scared of the reality of what happens to a person at the end. Scared because it reminded me of my depression. I just stood there and felt the elevator slink its way to the fifth floor. I looked at Claire. At her face, which suddenly looked lined. At her hair, which was whiter than before. At her body, which was gaunt. But most of all I looked at her eyes, which stared at the red carpet on the walls with a foggy indifference and did not acknowledge me.
I got off on the fifth floor and I did not say goodbye. I did not say goodbye a few months later, either, when I got out of the Army and moved to Minneapolis.