Pool lady

—Yesterday (Tuesday, October 6th) Yr Fthfl Srvnt had a Physical-Therapy appointment at Thompson Hospital.
Actually it’s called “AfterCare.” But it’s in Thompson’s Physical-Therapy department.
I see pretty much the same people, except now I have an AfterCare therapist.
I guess my health-insurance will no longer pay for physical-therapy. I’m not making sufficient progress, i.e. my balance just keeps getting worse and worse.
I’m sure I drive my AfterCare therapist nuts. I say hello to all the people I know = loose-as-a-goose.
I probably make my AfterCare therapist nervous, like perhaps I’m not supposed to be bothering anyone. E.g. **** the receptionist, ***** my previous physical-therapist, ****** the guy I started with, ****** who long ago helped me recover from my knee-replacement, and ******, who I call “Smiley,” a physical-therapist who always smiles at me.
**** is rather plain, but always smiles at me = I can’t resist.
This time on entering I noticed someone who looked familiar. But she disappeared into the therapy-gym before I could say anything — my AfterCare therapist was trying to direct me elsewhere.
Later I saw the lady inside the therapy-gym, and “you look very familiar. Are you a YMCA pool person?”
“Yes I am,” she smiled.
“I recognize your eyes,” I said; “mask or not, I recognize your eyes.”
(I also recognized her hair, which was extremely gray — but I didn’t say anything about that.)
I guess she was there with her poor husband, who was a complete wreck. He barely could walk, and used a walker, and what he said to me made no sense — like maybe he had Alzheimer’s.
That lady has to be older than me; she’s probably in her 80s.
So what? I recognized her, and she recognized me. We smiled at each other; her eyes gave her away.
And I think she might have once been a YMCA swimming-pool balance-therapist; employee or volunteer.
I remember her trying to show me how to walk heel-toe without holding onto the pool edge.
“Focus on the wall,” she’d say. But heel-toe is near impossible with my neuropathy, which is poor nerve communication down my legs to my feet. (And it’s not diabetic neuropathy.)
She was let go because she wasn’t certified.
“Someone I recognize,” I said; “happy to see ya!”
And she said she was happy to see me. She was smiling at me, mask or not I could tell.
AfterCare complete, I was directed toward an exit.
“Gotta see if I can say goodbye to this lady.” She no longer was standing in the therapy-gym, but was in an adjacent hallway with her struggling husband.
I said goodbye to them all, then walked out to my car.
The lady got in her own car, then moved it around to where she could help her husband get in.
As I left and passed them, I beeped the horn to let them know I was happy to see them.
Us oldsters are still alive, and we have to celebrate that.
If I see her again — and sadly I probably won’t — I'll tell her I really like the way she “stands by her man.”