She grips my elbow. Our gait is clumsy; her old age causes her to lean heavily on my lower arm. I try to shift her weight, but no sooner is she straightened than her shoulder slides back down my arm. Her shrinking build leans in so close that I feel her breath on my forearm.

Still, she’s not an unpleasant walking companion, and though her short-term memory is nearly gone, she remembers the most delightful happenings of yesteryear. She talks, and I listen, as we go around the block, and around again, because I told her daughter I have the time to do this on Sunday mornings.

The morning is mostly silent, save for our conversation and the noise of the wind as it blows by. We hear our footsteps as we walk. The crisp wind plays with her soft, gray wisps of hair, which stick out of her maroon hat. Now and again she shivers in her long puffy parka, and I gently nudge her woolen scarf closer to her.

The neighborhood we shuffle through has a tall flight of stairs leading up to each house, and when we return toward the duplex she lives in with her daughter’s family, she pauses heavily on each steep step. As she rests, she launches into yet another tale from years long gone.

“My parents brought us all by ship to Canada before the war started. Our uncle sponsored us back in ’28, when I was only a baby. My parents watched us grow into real Canadians, and they were grateful.

“Then, when we were settled, and my father already owned the shop, we sent for our relatives in Romania, because things there were already getting bad. My aunt Roska was still living there. She was always the family favorite, the one who played with us kids and joked around with the adults, and we so wanted her to come live with us. My parents begged for her to come join us here in Montreal.

“But she didn’t want to leave. So we sent her beautiful postcards of our new life here, of the streets and the houses, to convince Roska to join us in our new life in Canada.”

She leans alternately on the railings and on my elbow as we progress slowly up the endless stairs. I anticipate the ways in which the family convinced Roska to immigrate. I wait to hear of the breathless rescue, the joyous and tear-filled reunion, and about how Roska’s son now lives in Brooklyn and works as a doctor, and maybe his son is for me?

(Excerpted from Family First, Issue 599)