I remember as if it were yesterday, thinking that 28 was impossibly old. Today I sleep with my cane nearby, handy for those middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom.

What just happened? Well, for starters, fifty years beyond that dreadful age of 28 have happened; in just a month I’ll nearly pass that milestone. Most of my parts are still intact, though clearly wearing out. A shoulder gave up the ghost a dozen or more years ago, victim, I’ve always thought, of too many pulls of the lawn mower starter cord, and thanks to the miracle of modern surgery, got pinned back together. I get along with quite a few fewer teeth, though you wouldn’t notice unless I flash my gold molar at you. Both my tonsils and appendix came out via the knife, the former at the old Camden Hospital where my first son was born, and the appendix at Waldo after the diagnosis was confirmed via a scan sent in the middle of the night to a New Zealand radiologist.

 And now my left knee has quit. Kaput. Shot. Or, as the doctor said, like a tire without its treads, the cords are showing through. Ouch.

Turns out there are quite a few of us 60-80-year-olds who bear the shin to thigh scar that mars the kneecap, when they put in your new knee. Where once I would have spent a good bit of time in denial when a new pain developed – (it’ll get better on its own, and sometimes it did) there was no denying those raggedy knee bones in the x-ray. How soon can I get it done – I whined to my partner, to my upstairs family, to anyone who would listen.

Finding a surgeon was sticky, especially since, with the closing of Hope Health, I was without a PCP. “Go to Portland” people said; “go to Bangor”, even “go to Boston”. Then a call to PenBay Orthopedics and I got an appointment with a surgeon and date: May 6 I’ll get my new knee.

The pain had come on suddenly. One day I was happily walking Fritz a couple of miles a day, and the next it hurt. That knee has always been kind of nobbly and swollen, the results of a much earlier meniscus repair years and years ago. Funny-looking but not at all painful. Turns out, according to the doctor, those cartilage tears set you up for arthritis later. “Hey,” he said, “you got 25 more years out of it.”

The past month has been difficult, and not just because of the pain. Twice a week PT at Therapy Partners in Belfast has helped keep things stable and build up the muscles for a quicker recovery. I can drive. I have my upstairs family to do the stuff I can’t do. I have Don. It could be so much worse.

But I find myself watching how effortlessly people move, their legs – their knees – obeying every subtle signal sent by the brain. Old people, young ones, apparently oblivious to the miracle of knees that work painlessly. By contrast, this failing knee of mine is good for a limited number of steps each day. And there’s hardly a day when I don’t out-do them and end up, cane in hand, clomping from here to there, wincing at every step.

“You’ll be glad you did it,” said one neighbor when I asked about his metal and plastic knee. Turns out every other person in my age group has undergone either a new knee or hip procedure, or, like a couple of friends, they’re waiting for their turn. One woman had both her knees done, two weeks apart, another friend two years apart. Chatting with a guy in Hannaford’s the other day, knowing he’d had some problems with surgery, of course I had to ask. “Three times,” he told me, “had it done three times.” I guess they finally got it right because he didn’t seem to be limping.

How on earth do those old people who live on the mountainsides of Chile or Nepal or in one of those hilly, Italian villages clinging to the cliffs hanging over the sea manage? Are they immune to the arthritis that lays us low? Does a lifetime of walking up and down mountains develop stronger muscles and tendons and things that keep their joints intact? Or, just as likely, are they in constant pain?

Saturday and Sunday I finally ventured out into the garden. Tracee, with her 40-year-old strength, did most of those early spring chores – hooking up the hoses, straightening up the garden beds, raking out the winter’s debris. She planted spinach, put away the snow blower, carried bags of soil here and there, picked up the ratty dog toys. I watched for a while, then got up my courage and went into our greenhouse.

It was warm and fragrant in there, mostly due to the pansies we’d gone out for earlier in the day. There’s a board to sit on, straddling the planting beds, and I was able to maneuver myself onto it and reach the plants. When you hurt you have to plan out every movement, and as I do it, I imagine how it will be with that new knee.

“They push all your muscles out of the way to get at your knee,” Carley, the physical therapist told me. “They’re all squiggly afterwards and you have to retrain them.” Or something to that effect. Good to know what’s coming. But at least now I know I can get down on the ground and hitch around on my butt, pulling weeds and planting onions, and get some taste of spring.

As a new arrival in the world of limited movement I try not to feel too sorry for myself. There are so many people who are worse off, who may not have a surgical fix for whatever it is that limits them, who have had to come to terms with “this is the way it will always be.”

When my world revolved around babies, kissing their tiny feet and nuzzling their sweet-smelling necks, I thought the best in life would be over when I had no more babies. But surprise! With their first words, then sentences I fell in love all over again, babyhood forgotten. Each stage was like that. Watching them move into the world of school, of teams, of friends, and then high school and driving and jobs. They just got better and better.

My own growing older has been like that. The dread of someday losing Wally, a fear that haunts most women, though I can count a dozen widowers in town, came home full force four years ago. And then, to my surprise, I survived. Survived with yet another layer of sadness/wisdom/whatever it is we seniors gain as we lose parents, siblings, spouses, or even, God forbid, children.

The other night, as we’ve started doing every week, my four granddaughters came for supper, teen-agers who likely view 28 as ancient. Being around these strong, young girls is both energizing and enlightening, as I’ve written before, kindling all sorts of thoughts in their Grandma’s brain. They do most of the work, setting the table, making the pancakes (breakfast for supper!), washing the dishes; in the process they discovered the four little aprons Wally and I bought for them at the Common Ground Fair a long time ago. They remembered wearing them when they could barely see over the top of the table as we cooked together, standing on a stool to roll out the dough or stand at the sink.

Then they stood against the door jam, each in turn, a ritual they repeat every time we gather, to measure themselves against their fathers who stood there at 12, at 15, at 18. They’ve already outstripped their dads, these long-legged girls. Names atop names, everyone crowding in.

One will leave Lincolnville this fall for college, another will leave LCS for high school; another moves up to eighth grade and the fourth will be a high school junior. The two boys sometimes join us for these suppers, a fourth and a fifth grader. The three-year-old, child of a couple who waited awhile to become parents, is now using sentences, though they’re just as likely to be in Mandarin as English.

There’s a richness to old age I hadn’t anticipated.

Dr. Shah Visits Lincolnville

People going to last Saturday’s vaccine clinic at the Community Building were surprised to see a familiar looking figure chatting with David Kinney: Dr. Nirav Shah of Maine CDC fame with his regular radio updates on the Covid front. This was the third Lincolnville clinic, a collaboration of the town and North East Mobile Health Services. I know there were two happy, newly-vaccinated people at my house Saturday evening.

Next Up: A BBQ for the LHS

Sunday, May 2 the next drive-through, pick-up fund-raiser for the Beach Schoolhouse features Andy Young’s Piggyback Barbecue.The pre-ordered meals, $25 each will include a Ribs/Brisket/Pulled Pork Combo, BBQ baked beans, cole slaw, cornbread and cookies. Andy, who will be grill-tending starting Saturday and going all night, has agreed to divulge a secret old family recipe for the baked beans which will be cooked inside. Rick McLaughlin will donate the coleslaw and Dot’s the cornbread.

To order meals for yourself or to donate a meal, email Christine Leary. A limited number of meals will be available. And all proceeds will go the Beach Schoolhouse Renovation Project!