Brown Leaf

by Susan Cameron

I teach an exercise class called Longevity Stick on Tuesday mornings to a group of elderly Vietnamese people. The two eldest ladies are ninety years old. One is Cu Rang, a tiny, sweet-faced happy lady who sometimes brings fruit and says, "Su-Su! You eat-ee!" The other is Cu Lan, an even tinier lady, who brings wrapped hard candies and saves the coffee flavored ones for me. They have matching Costco rolling walkers, the ones with the padded seats, and when they get tired they rest until they can stand up and exercise some more.

We were all sitting at our picnic table in the park last week, waiting for our 9 a.m. start time. Cu Lan sighed, said a few sharp, exasperated-sounding sentences, and everybody laughed. I looked at Kieu Ton and raised my eyebrows for the translation.

Ton explained, "Cu Lan says she has to go to the doctor again today. She says, 'I am like the last brown leaf hanging on a tree. Why am I not dead yet?'"

Everybody thought it was funny, and I had to smile too. Cu Lan wasn't looking for sympathy; she was just ticked off because death was taking its own sweet time getting to her.

After all, death hadn't always been so lackadaisical and leisurely. Death took her husband long ago, left her widowed for decades; took friends, neighbors, children, and ultimately took her country's government. Death boarded the escape boats with the Thai pirates. Death hung out with the Viet Cong prison guards, the ones who hung the prisoners of war from their wrists until their shoulders dislocated. (The men in my Longevity Stick class have a hard time raising their arms above their shoulders to this day).

Anyhow, I think an American in her position might wake up in the morning feeling pleased, as though she'd cheated death yet another day; but I think Cu Lan feels that by leaving her alive, death is actually cheating her. Is it a cultural or religious difference that I'm seeing, or do we all get to a point (if we live long enough) where we look at our watch, tap our foot, sigh, and think, okay, time to go?

I'm American -- I don't want to get the answer any time soon.

copyright 2011 Susan Cameron