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Manicures and Life Lessons
Laura Berman Fortgang

Who Is That Person?
tom walsh

The Art of Simplicity
Wilferd A. Peterson

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I'll never forget her voice.  It was scratchy and frail and boisterous at the same time.

"Go away!" she yelled from underneath her sheets and blankets, a little bird seeking refuge in the corner of her nest.

"Go away!" she screamed, in a tone that matched pitch with a clarinet.

Olive was my assignment.  I was twenty-five and not very sure of myself, but something told me not to obey her and go in the door of her tiny studio apartment on the Upper West Side of New York City.  I was supposed to deliver food to her as part of my volunteer work.  It was winter, and we were making sure elderly folks and shut-ins got food.

When I went inside, I could see a lump in the bed tucked in a corner of the room.  It moved a bit as she yelled for me to go away one more time.  As I quietly moved over the threadbare carpeting to get closer to the bed, she suddenly threw off her covers and screeched out one more command.

"Don't grow old!  Now go away."

What was I doing?

Olive sat up in her bed and leaned against the wall.  She was wearing pink two-piece pajamas--men's style, woman's fit--and she perked up just a bit as she pointed me toward a drawer and her manicure tools.  Without words we both glided over to the small table and chairs just a couple of feet away from the bed that she seemed to hope would be her coffin.

As I massaged her hands and filed her nails, Olive's face changed before my eyes.  It went from a grayish color to revealing a glint of pink in her skin.  Her face transformed from tight and acrid to show the remnants of an attractive, sophisticated New York girl with amazing cheekbones and a strong jawline.

I don't remember too many words between us, but that day became the beginning of a biweekly manicure session with Olive.  I came ad did her nails and she told me about her glamorous life as a shopgirl at Bloomingdales's and how she made a terrible mistake never marrying or having kids.  It was as if we were sent to each other.  I kept her engaged in life for a few hours a month and she kept me from making the same decisions she had which were already in danger of becoming permanent.  My decisions to never marry or have kids were already ten years old, but she somehow managed to loosen them from the cement they were embedded in and make me question my resolve.

That summer, I had been away doing summer stock and missed a couple of my manicure days with Olive.  When I showed up at her building one day, no one answered at her door.  I went to find the building manager in the lobby.

"Where's Olive?" I said, fearing his answer.

"They took her to Beth Israel," he said.

"When?" I asked, suddenly realizing it could be too late.

"Two weeks ago or something," he said, unconcerned.

I flew out of the building in some surreal waking dream.  I got myself into a cab and to Beth Israel Hospital.  I found Olive alive and completely out of her mind.  She was strapped to the bed and screaming like crazy.  I couldn't make out what she was trying to say.  It was just screaming and moaning with an occasional "No!" thrown in.

This scenario was stretching me beyond my capacity as a twenty-five-year-old candidate for a nervous breakdown.  I didn't know what to do with a screaming old lady I hardly knew.  At least that was my first thought.  But what I did was grad a rolling stool and move in close to her head.  She had no idea who I was and didn't really see me anyway.  Whoever she was yelling at was not visible or present (at least in flesh and bones).  I leaned down to her ear and started whispering.

"It's okay, Olive.  You don't have to fight anymore.  Everything's fine.  No one is going to hurt you."

She stopped screaming.

"You don't have to fight.  There is nothing to be afraid of.  You can rest now."

Olive took a deep breath and closed her eyes.  I started to feel panicky again when I let the next words out of my mouth.

"You can go if you want to.  It's okay.  No more fighting.  You can go."

"Oh my God!" I thought to myself.  "Oh, please don't die in front of me.  I don't think I can do that part!"

When I was sure she was asleep and not dead, I went out in the hall to find someone in charge.  I didn't know how these things worked.  Who was in charge of Olive?  I found out that there was a social worker on her case and I left my number.

"Are you next of kin?" the nurse asked.

"No, I'm just a friend," I replied, feeling as if none of it was any of my business and questioning how I even got into the situation in the first place.  As I took one more look into Olive's hospital room, I knew I wouldn't see her again.  I was too afraid to come back and be there when she passed.  All I could think of as I walked out of the hospital was the price of Olive's choices.  I learned that the sacrifice it takes to let others into your life might be worth it.  If Olive had made them she might have changed the end of her story.  I knew I was open to changing mine.

There were four of us at Olive's funeral:  the woman who held her power of attorney (she had worked with Olive at Bloomingdale's), the woman's husband, the clergyperson, and me.

I'll never forget Olive.  What started out as a good deed changed my life.

There is no question in my mind that I was the one who received the most from the Laura-Olive cosmic matchup.  I was supposed to be the giver--bringing food, manicures, and companionship--but she gave me my life.  She turned my head in a different direction.  It was a brief but intensely meaningful encounter.  We connected at a critical time in each other's life.  She improved mine and I'd like to think her passing was made the slightest bit easier.  In some ways, she started me off as a minister more than a decade before it even occurred to me as a conscious thought.
   

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"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!" wrote Thoreau.  "I say let your affairs be as one, two, three and not as a hundred or a thousand."

The art of simplicity is simply to simplify. . .

Simplicity avoids the superficial, penetrates the complex, goes to the heart of the problem and pinpoints key factors.

Simplicity does not beat around the bush.  It does not take winding detours.  It follows a straight line to the objective.  Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points.

Simplicity does not elucidate the obscure, it emphasizes the obvious.

Simplicity solves problems.  Listen to the testimony of Charles Kettering, a genius of modern research:  "The problem when solved will be simple."

Simplicity discovers great ideas; a swinging cathedral lamp inspired the pendulum, watching a tea kettle led to the steam engine, and a falling apple revealed the law of gravitation.

Simplicity is the mark of greatness.  "To be simple is to be great," wrote Emerson.  Only little people pretend; big people are genuine and sincere.

Simplicity has given all the big things little names:  dawn, day hope, love, home, peace, life, death.

Simplicity is eloquent:  it is the Twenty-third Psalm and the Gettysburg address.

Simplicity uses little words.  It practices the wisdom of Lincoln, who said, "make it so simple a child will understand; then no one will misunderstand."

Simplicity deepens life.  It magnifies the simple virtues on which people's survival depends:  humility, faith, courage, serenity, honesty, patience, justice, tolerance, thrift.

Simplicity is the arrow of the spirit!