I saw her coming up the steps just as I happened to look out the front door of my house. She'd sounded older on the phone, but I hadn't imagined that the registered nurse that would be administering my shots was going to be quite this old. She walked uncertainly, as if the ground was about to buck her off like a wild horse. Her right hand extended out like a trapeze artist waiting for the high wire to sway.
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I went out to greet her and I offered to carry her bag for her, which she handed to me without protest. She continued shuffling toward the front porch as we exchanged pleasantries, but stopped at the front step. Quickly realizing that it was a bit too high for her to traverse on her own, I held out my hand, she took it, and we both walked inside.
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Needless to say, I was a little concerned that she was going to be injecting me with twelve shots over the next three days.
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We sat down on the couch in the front living room, and she took my blood pressure, weight, temperature, and pulse. We went through the kit provided by "Be the Match"--the one that comes with each four-vial dose--looking at the syringes, the bandaids, and the instructions.
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"Are you donating for someone you know, or just to be nice?" She asked me.
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"Donating to a stranger," I told her. She smiled and nodded.
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Rhoda grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. That's Canada, if you're unaware. Born in 1935, she went to a very small high school with a very small number of graduates. She told me that in a week, she's going on a road trip with a friend. They're going to go have dinner with thirty-five of her classmates back in her hometown, and she's going to explore the streets of her youth.
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"It'll probably be the last time," she laughed, "I'm moving to Texas with my daughter this August."
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The injection takes about two minutes for each vial. Her hands were strong, far stronger than I gave her credit for, and she jabbed the needle in quickly and brusquely with very little pain.
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As she plunged the medication into my arm, she said that she hadn't eaten dinner yet.
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"I'll probably get something on the way home," she said, "when you live alone, you can get away with that sort of thing."
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She confided in me that her son had died last year of a sudden heart attack at the age of fifty-six, and that her eldest daughter had died at sixteen of a congenital heart condition.
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"That's why I'm moving in with my last living child," she told me, "she worries and, you know, I might be getting too old to live alone. And I'd like to spend the time I have left with her."
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Soon enough, the injections were finished. I helped her pack up her bag and carried it outside for her, and then gave her a hand back down the step again. As she was about to leave, she turned to me.
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"Thank you for helping a family avoid a tragedy," she said, with just the slightest hint of a tear in her eye.
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"Of course. You helped them too," I told her.
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She smiled, "Yes, I guess I did."