old ladies

So today I went and took Mingus for a walk, and not 5 minutes from Dan's house I walked past an old lady on her front porch who said "EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!" I looked at her and said something along the lines of "uh... yes?" and she said "Can you help me? I really need your help!" and I'm all like "uh... ok?" so I go up and I'm looking where to tie Mingus up as she's explaining to me that the lady she's taking care of (and keep in mind... THIS lady who's talking to me is like pushing 65 or 70) has fallen and her son isn't there to help get her back up. So we shut Mingus up in the mud room so he can't escape and I follow her into the house which has that same shut up, tepid sort of smell that all old people homes have, around the corner into the bathroom where this lady has fallen (the other lady did make sure she had pants on THANK GOD). She's just lying there on the floor of the bathroom with her hands on her chest and a pillow behind her back. SO, I have to help lift this other old lady (who's gotta be pushing fucking 90 at LEAST) back into her wheelchair. I have to put one foot on each side of her hips (yes, the younger old lady told me to, quote, "straddle her"), lean over, and let her lace her fingers together around the back of my neck. Then I lift with my legs and she's heavy -- I mean, for a person she's probably pretty light since she wasn't much bigger than me, but it was all dead weight, you know, like lifting up one of those big bags of dog food, and I had to sort of swing her into her chair while the other old lady sort of steered her hips in. She said the older lady's shoes must have been slick and the floor was slick so she just sort of slipped off of the toilet when she went to use the bathroom, and the younger lady's son wasn't home so they couldn't get her off the floor, and she had been lying there for an hour before I came along with Mingus and was the first person who could help. And when this older woman laced her fingers around my neck her and as I was first lifting her off the ground her face was like three inches from my face and all I could think of was the sandwich I had after work and how I had felt that there was a little piece of ham stuck in between my front teeth that I hadn't bothered to remove because who the fuck would see it but for some reason I had to say "hello" to this ancient woman and all I thought what a very strange way to meet someone. I remember looking straight into her face and how round it was and how it was like looking at a young child and how smooth the skin of her face looked though there were wrinkles at the edges of it and how it was covered in freckles and the skin itself looked frail like paper. And I thought "Oh my god am I gonna be this old am I gonna be like this?" as I lifted her up. When we got back in her chair she made the same sort of simple happy face that little kids do and then she smiled and said something but I didn't understand what she said so she said again "Who are you?" and then "Where do you live?" and I answered but I felt so awkward and all I wanted to do was get out of there so I asked if they were OK and the other lady said "Oh yes, we're fine now" so I said something about leaving and went to get Mingus and the lady thanked me and I got the fuck out of there.

I know I am writing this the same way that I write my dreams but it feels applicable because the whole experience was so surreal. I'm not sure how this fits into the symbology of my life but it's the sort of experience that's so overwhelming you know it means something even if you can't figure out what.