Sometimes you meet someone who changes how you think about things.

Sharon is ninety now. A widow. I first met her when she drove her husband, a retired obstetrician, to choir rehearsals. He had Parkinsons. He delivered most of the babies in town but not hers. She sat in the library and read until time to drive him home and often brought refreshments for the entire choir.

She’s one of those women I refer to, with great admiration, as a hoot.

She has four children and jokes that her husband was never around when she went into labor.

She’s a retired English professor who kept teaching until in her eighties. She invited me to join her book group which was mostly made up of old professors. It was a great group. Sort of disbanded now.

I just bumped into her coming our of Fred Meyer’s. We were both loading stuff into our old Subarus. She had big bags of bird seed, cat litter, and potting soil. She keeps her wild and crazy hair blond. Today it looked like she is now doing it herself. Fabulous, I say!

Before we really greeted each other, she said, “What are you reading.” I told her and put the question back to her. She’s reading the new book by Amor Towles, The Lincoln Highway. I’ll be reading that next. She and I loved Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow a few years back. It may be my all-time favorite read.

She said we should try to get what’s left of our book group together and she would have us over for lunch soon. I said I would do it. She said “Oh, I should be able to fix lunch for a few old women.”

When I grow up, I want to be like Sharon.