Her walk is slow, hesitant, leaning slightly forward from the waist. Her hands, swollen and misshapen with arthritis, have lines of blue veins across the back. They are never still.

She often interrupts to ask what we are talking about. The telephone seems to confuse her; she thinks the ringing is on the television. She calls us to report that she has lost her Christmas card list. It turns up on her desk, hidden under a pile of appeals. She is on every mailing list there is, and is constantly asked to help “Save the whales” and “Stop the Japanese slaughter of dolphins.”

She is frightened and distressed by letters from retired military men. They write that unless she sends $35 by return mail, the Russians will land in Oregon and take over America. The arrival of the daily mail is a big event in her day. Once every few weeks, it contains a personal letter. The rest is appeals and ads. She reads every item.

Her checkbook is a constant puzzle of missing entries and double deposits of retirement checks. She goes out to do an errand and cannot find the place─a place she’s frequented for years. She telephones to say the furnace door has exploded open; the kindly repairman arrives at 10 P.M. to check and assure her that all is well. She tells you about it, not because there is anything needing to be done. She tells you in order to make you understand that life is out of control─that there is a conspiracy of inanimate objects afoot.


Often, if you suggest this or that solution, she is annoyed. She wasn’t asking for a solution. She was merely reporting disaster. She sits down to read and falls asleep.

America’s lifestyle prepares us well for our first day at school, for adolescence, for college, for matrimony, for parenthood, for middle age, for retirement. But it prepares us not at all for old age. Busy and active until her seventy-eighth year, the woman, now 85, is frightened by her own loss of power.

“Why am I so tired all the time?” she asks.

“I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the dashboard lights.”

“I look at the snow and wonder how I’ll live through the winter.”

“I think I must light the wood stove. I’m so cold.”

I do not see the woman as she is today. I look at her familiar face and see her on a stage, floating up a flight of stairs in Arsenic and Old Lace, with that skilled power in her knees that made her seem to glide from one step to another. I hear her speak and remember her light but lovely contralto singing Katisha in The Mikado.

I watch her sleeping in her chair, her head on her chest, and remember her pacing up and down an English classroom, reading aloud from Beowulf, bringing to life the monster Grendel for a class of 16-year-olds. I remember late winter afternoons, fortified with hot cocoa, sitting on the floor at her feet, listening to The Ballad of the White Horse, Don Quixote and King Lear.

I remember her as a young widow, coming home from school and pulling three children through the snow on a sled. I remember always the summer jobs when school was let out, selling life insurance or encyclopedias. I remember her


as a bride the second time, and the second time a widow. Hers was the home the family came to, a place of books, a big, old house where civility was the rule.

There is some rage in aging─a disbelief that one’s life has rounded its last curve and this stretch of road leads to death. She has always been a woman of strong faith, and it seems that faith at last has failed her. She quotes Claudius in Hamlet.

“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”

Widowed, alone, children and grandchildren flung wide from California to New England, she fills her days with little things. Socializing fatigues her. She withdraws from the intense conversational jousting that used to delight her.

I watch the woman─my mother─walking carefully down the frozen, snow-filled driveway to the mailbox. She is a photograph in black and white, which only loving memory tints with life and color.

--adapted from New York Times by J. Merrill-Faster

civility [sI`vIlJtI] n. 斯文；彬彬有禮
disbelief ["dIsbJ`lif] n. 不相信
round [rZUnd] v.t. 繞過；繞…而行
stretch [strEtS] n. 一片；一段
*Claudius [`klOdIJs] n.
克勞底阿斯，莎士比亞《哈姆雷特》劇中人物 / *Hamlet [`hAmlIt] n. 《哈姆雷特》
fatigue [fJ`tiq] v.t. 使疲勞
withdraw [wIT`drO] v.i. 退去；退出
*jousting [`djVstIGx `djZUstIG] n. 比武
tint [tInt] v.t. 淡淡染色

True or False: Mark T for a true statement and F for a false statement.

1. The author is the old woman’s sister.

2. The old woman had at least three children.

3. The old woman was married twice and widowed twice.

4. Nobody visits the old woman or writes her any more.

5. The old woman got retired when she was 85.

Multiple Choice: Choose the best answer based on the reading.

1.What is the main idea of this article?

(Ａ) The life of the author was bothered by his/her mother.

(Ｂ) The life of the author’s mother changed with her getting older.

(Ｃ) The author is taking care of his/her old mother to return the favor.

(Ｄ) The author’s mother had a miserable life when she was
middle-aged.

2.In the 4th paragraph, what does it mean by “there is a conspiracy of inanimate objects afoot”?

(Ａ) She was widowed twice.

(Ｂ) She can’t find the way to the bank.

(Ｃ) She is losing her basic living skills.

(Ｄ) Russians will attack and dominate the U.S.A.

3.In the 8th paragraph, we can conclude that the author’s mother was once a great .

(Ａ) composer

(Ｂ) performer

(Ｃ) ballad dancer

(Ｄ) college professor

4.How can we describe the time of the author’s mother’s past?

(Ａ) Dark and lonely.

(Ｂ) Plain and common.

(Ｃ) Active and colorful.

(Ｄ) Forgetful and frightening.

5.In the last paragraph, what does it mean by “She is a photograph in black and white, which only loving memory tints with life and color”?

(Ａ) We can only see how vivid her life was with the help memory.

(Ｂ) The author’s mother didn’t take any colored picture in her life.

(Ｃ) She is dead already, and we can only remember her in the picture.

(Ｄ) Her boring life can be changed if she can remember things clearly.

Match the words: Please fill in the blanks using the following words.

widowadolescencefatigueerrand
disbeliefhesitantassuredHowever
such asLittle by little

In , we can’t imagine how life will be when we get older, or even much older. , after decades of hard work, the burdens from the job, the family and other responsibilities us. , we find ourselves forgetting to do something more often, even if we have twice that we won’t forget. We might fail to do an that we are so used to doing, paying bills and mailing letters. We are sometimes when walking back and forth the living room and the kitchen because we suddenly forget what we are meant to do. The phenomenon as above might get worse if a person becomes a or a bachelor. It is a that we change from a nimble young people to old forgetful elders so soon!