Silver Pine is a gated community for seniors at varying levels of self-sufficiency. The guard at the gate looks at me behind the wheel of my car and frowns at the windshield, searching, scanning&. Eventually he indicates for me to roll the window down.

　　"Good morning, ma`am."

　　"Good morning."

　　"You are missing your parking pass. Do you need help installing it or something?"

　　I sigh and fight the urge to roll my eyes. "I don`t live here."

　　"You don`t? Oh. Are you needing a visitor`s pass then?"

　　"You tell me. I`m here to visit an old friend. I`m not sure which room she lives in though."

　　"Ok. Well for both issues, to get a temporary parking pass and to look your friend up, you`ll need to go to the front office."

　　"And where might I find the front office?"

　　"Through the gate, take your first right, and the office comes up, first building on your left. The ladies working the desk can get you squared away."

　　"I& would assume so," I say, releasing the barest hint of snark after repressing quite a lot of it over the course of this interaction.

　　"Do you need me to repeat any of those instructions?"

　　"No. Thanks," I say, forcing a smile, and the guard returns to his box and pushes the button to make the gate swing open with a "have a nice day" thrown in like a spoonful of sugar to help you swallow the medicine.

　　I may look old- I may be old- but I don`t need anyone to treat me like a child or like one of the residents in this place requiring geriatric care for dementia. Maybe I`m just a little extra sensitive to the assumptions and over explaining. Some part of my mind scolds me for being prickly. Now, Lottie, he was just trying to be respectful and helpful. Yeah, but he was assuming that I`m somehow cognitively impaired. A normal, polite conversation would have gone like this: "Hello, ma`am and welcome. It looks like you don`t have a parking pass. Do you need directions to the front office where they can assist you with that?" But no. He assumed I was a resident here, first mistake, assumed I needed help installing a parking pass, second mistake, assumed I knew the parking procedures of the community, third mistake, and then treated me like I would struggle to understand them after a very simple explanation, fourth mistake. It was anything but an honestly polite and respectful interaction. But I digress, and ultimately, it mattereth little.

　　The office is well marked and very easy to find, the ladies at the desk helpful and actually respectful, and the small map of the community that they give me leads me directly to the correct building. Building M, room number 336. Silver Pine has a large footprint with all of their residents living on the ground level to prevent falls down stairs, no doubt. Twenty-four residential buildings, each with twenty-six rooms, two residents per room, Silver Pine is home to over twelve hundred seniors at full capacity, and, to my understanding, they usually are full.

　　Building M. I walk in, the front lobby branching in three directions, a staff member working on some paperwork at a corner desk station sitting to the left of the door.

　　"Excuse me."

　　The middle-aged lady`s head lifts, requiring another second before her eyes do the same. "Yes, can I help you?"

　　"I`m looking for room number 336?"

　　"Hall to the right. 336, you said?" I nod. "Even numbered rooms are on the right side of the hallway."

　　"Great. Thanks."

　　It becomes apparent pretty quickly that this isn`t one of the assisted living residential buildings. Walking down the hallway, several of the doors I pass are propped open, the residents within all lying on a bed, some hooked up to monitors, others to oxygen tanks. Room 336 is one of the few rooms not left with the door open. So I knock, waiting for someone within to shout "come in!" before I test the door handle. "Lottie?! This is a surprise!" Betsy is propped up in a bed, squished in a mound of pillows, a TV off to one side playing reruns of an old show from the late 80s or early 90s.

　　"How are you, Betsy?"

　　"Oh, I`m as you see me," she says, a fragile smile informing me that things are tough for her right now. I might have guessed that based entirely on her reaction to seeing me. A surprise? No. I called her just yesterday and scheduled today`s visit. I know because it is in my phone calendar. Perhaps her sense of time is even worse than mine. Or perhaps she has lost more than a sense of time&. That, and she`s in the nursing home section of Silver Pine.

　　I`m not really sure where to start the conversation as I take the seat next to her bed, the one nearest the window and furthest from the door, so I say the first coherent thought that enters my head. "Well, you look comfy."

　　Betsy laughs, a forlorn, tired sound. "Living the good life, it seems."

　　"How& are you liking it here?"

　　"It`s been fine. As these sorts of homes go, this one has been nice. The staff are lovely people for the most part, so that makes a real difference."

　　"But&?" I prompt.

　　A heavy sigh. "How`s Thomas these days?"

　　The change in topic is abrupt and unwelcome, and yet, I also expected it. "Still haven`t heard from him."

　　"Still!?" Betsy frowns, the distress I`m hiding reflected in the scowl forming through her surprise. "I was sure that he`d reconcile eventually now that Fred is gone. How long has it been now?"Stolen novel; please report.

　　"It`s been nearly a year and a half since Fred passed."

　　"That long&. And how are you doing with that?"

　　"How are you doing with Michael gone?" I turn the narrative around on her.

　　"I should have seen that coming," she chuckles. "Oh&. I`ve had a few extra years to adjust&. Doesn`t change the difficulty of maintaining relationships with adult children."

　　"What do you mean? Doesn`t Donna live nearby?"

　　"She does, but her own kids are in high school and college, and she`s& rather preoccupied."

　　"Translation: she doesn`t visit much."

　　Betsy looks down at her hands and settles more deeply into her pillows before talking again. "I understand that she`s busy, and let`s be honest, I`m not great company these days. What do I even have to talk about besides the endless reruns I`m slowly killing my brain cells with? I suppose I could gossip about my neighbors. At least I`m not as bad as my roommate or any number of folks who live here, though I am terrified of reaching that point."

　　"What do you mean?"

　　"They are telling me that I am showing the early signs of Alzheimer`s. The doctors confirmed it. It hasn`t affected me too much yet, but I am feeling my memory start to slip. The only times I find my symptoms distressing is when people call me out on them."

　　"Like what?"

　　"You know, it`s funny, I& can`t think of an example. I don`t remember."

　　"But you know that there is something there that you should remember?"

　　"Yes. As dumb as it is, it`s like I`ve got a file in a drawer labeled and telling me what memories I should have, but the folder is empty."

　　"That has to be frustrating."

　　"At least I haven`t forgotten my kids` names," Betsy says quietly, and I can see the tears flooding her vision as she glances at the other bed in the room where another lady lies asleep. "That`s what`s happened to Eliza, my roommate. Her son comes to visit her every Sunday with his family, and she doesn`t know who he is. During a visit, she`ll ask him dozens of times what his name is and why he`s visiting and who his kids are and how old they are&. Lottie, I hope I die before I get to that point. I can`t even imagine how confusing and terrifying that would be. When you can`t even remember your own children& what are you living for? But I`m on course to be like her. Alzheimer`s. That`s what Eliza has too. She`s just a few years ahead of me give or take depending on how aggressive the disease presents itself in my case."

　　"And you want to die?"

　　She sighs, a lost look in her eyes as she turns to stare out the window where a darling little flower box has been filled with poinsettias on the inside window sill. "I don`t know how to answer that question, Lottie. We`re only seventy. In theory we have another ten to twenty years left, but if I can`t age gracefully, what is the point of those extra decades? What`s the point of living them if I can`t remember them? You know, unless I`ve forgotten, you are the only person from Raesport who visits me anymore, and I can`t remember the last time I saw you either because it was so long ago or because I literally can`t remember your visit. Michael`s gone. Donna tries to visit once a week but sometimes can`t make it. My boys have scattered to the four winds and only visit around the holidays when Donna hosts the gatherings. I saw them for Thanksgiving last week, but I only remember because we took a lot of pictures. It`s the in-laws` year for Christmas, so I don`t expect to see my boys for the rest of this year. Donna has been inviting me to join her in-laws` Christmas gathering, but it just makes me feel like a burden. I haven`t decided if I want to go or not&." She trails off, a weary sort of pain haunting her eyes.

　　"How`s your mobility, Betsy? Can you still get around ok?"

　　A sigh escapes that seems to deflate her, and she sinks just that much more into her pillows. "I`m nearly wheelchair bound," she admits unwillingly. "I can shuffle around with a walker. But my leg still hasn`t fully recovered from that fall a few years back, and look at me! I`ve gotten fat without being able to work any calories off. It`s a downward spiral. The more weight I put on, the harder it is to walk. The harder it is to walk, the more weight I put on."

　　And there you have it. The trifecta: damaged physical health quickly followed by degradation to the intelligent mind causing the deterioration of the emotional mind. Betsy`s entire stool is collapsing, but it`s collapsing in slow motion that will result in the torturous lingering that witnessing has caused me to fear. It would seem that Betsy and I are like-minded in this fear, and I feel a deeply rooted pity for my friend spring up all at once. She is facing the worst sort of end, and I cannot blame her for her trepidation.

　　To my left, Eliza stirs, eventually sitting up in her bed while Betsy and I wait quietly to allow her to roll over if she wishes. "Who are you? What are you doing in my room? Wait. This isn`t my room&. Goodness, have I stolen your bed!? I`m about as well-mannered as Goldilocks, aren`t I?!" Eliza stands up sheepishly. She`s wearing little else besides a flannel nightdress and oversized socks with sticky grips on the soles to keep her from slipping on the laminate flooring. It`s a nice laminate floor that gives the appearance of hardwood. "My name is Eliza," she says, extending her hand first to Betsy who takes it graciously, and then to me. I similarly accept the gesture, noticing Eliza`s wild bed head and wondering idly to myself if that`s how my hair looks when I wake up these days. "What are your names?"

　　"I`m Betsy, and this is Lottie."

　　"It`s nice to meet you both. Sorry for the trouble. I`ll be going now. I should be getting home. Carl will be wondering where dinner is!"

　　"Eliza," Betsy interrupts her shuffling toward the door, "why don`t you join us? It`s no trouble, and it`s a good while before dinner time yet."

　　"Oh?" Eliza frowns. "What time is it?" Betsy indicates a wall clock, and Eliza looks at it with startled eyes. "Not even lunchtime?"

　　"We could watch Full House if you`d-"

　　"I love Full House!" Eliza exclaims, happily sinking back onto the bed while Betsy sighs and pulls up a streaming service with Full House listed as number one on both the "recently watched" and "favorites" lists.

　　With Eliza distracted and redirected for the moment, Betsy turns back to me with a dull smile. "Sometimes, I think it might be nice to not remember things. Can you just imagine two patients forever reintroducing themselves to each other, watching the exact same shows together over and over again, and enjoying it every time like it`s the first time they`ve seen it? It would be like existing in a localized time loop together. I suppose that might be quite pleasant. But the futility of it all makes me feel sad to think about. And the one would never be able to remember the other when they are dead&. It would be a strange type of tragedy, don`t you think?"

　　I nod, my thoughts returning to the idea of "being survived" by those you leave behind. You can only be survived if those you leave choose to or are capable of choosing to remember you. Without memory, without record, without witness, what does it matter? At the end of the day, what makes any of us matter?

　　Time passes at Silver Pine watching the odd episode of Full House with Eliza between exchanging brief conversations with Betsy and pondering this strange end-of-life era the three of us are all engaged in at different stages, and slowly, the realization occurs to me that, while I do not fear death, I do fear aging. It`s ironic that I only figured that out now that I am what many would consider "aged". Death comes to all. It`s a certainty of life, and therefore leaves very little room for fear. Aging, however, is not certain. For one, not everyone grows old, and for those who do, aging takes a case by case approach to the way it manifests.

　　I find myself wallowing in pity for those who wind up in the metaphorical "here"- the state of aging when dysfunction and fear dominate while our existence and sense of purpose break down along with our well-being. The prelude to being forgotten is becoming forgettable, and time has the power to humble even the greatest of humanity in the end.