Real Grown Ups: stories of people that are well on their way to being ‘mature’

Dorothy L., caretaker of homeless veterans
I met Dorothy on the plane coming home from a Colorado ski trip. After switching planes due to flight delays, I found myself in the dreaded middle seat. I managed to get a Nigerian man to switch places with my husband, so he could sit next to me on the aisle, and settled in with the Sky Mall magazine (“we could use one of those!”). Dorothy and I soon struck up a quiet conversation. She was from Boulder, flying to Chattanooga to visit her daughter. I helped her clean up her spilled bag of potato chips as she remarked about the frustration of getting old. She confirmed with a flight attendant that they would have a wheelchair waiting for her in Chicago, confiding that though she could walk fine, she got too confused these days and feared getting lost in the airport.

We talked about Boulder being an interesting place to live—an active, young college town. A spiritual town as well, with “always some new guru” pushing a new book or meditative idea. Her daughter and a son in Las Vegas had tried to get her to move, but she likes living there too much. She grew up in Summit County, where her grandfather was a butcher in the Leadville area. She told me the story of “Silverheels”, the heart of gold prostitute known for the silver shoes she wore. According to the Colorado legend, Silverheels was the only one who stayed behind to nurse the ailing miners when smallpox hit their mining town. Unfortunately, she contracted the pox, and though she lived, was permanently scarred. After the epidemic passed, she shut herself away in her mountainside cabin, and when the recovered miners delivered a collection they had gathered on her behalf, they found the cabin empty, the silver shoes left behind. In her honor, they named the place Mount Silverheels.

Dorothy lost her son a few years ago to “an extended illness”. He was a veteran—I suppose of the Gulf War. She said she promised him she would volunteer to help vets after his death. She wanted to help at the Paralyzed Veterans of America chapter, but it was too far across town. So, she started taking in homeless people, with a focus on vets. She currently lives in only 2 rooms in her house, and lets 3 or 4 homeless people live in the other rooms. She also works at a local hospital, but gives all the money she makes “to the poor”. “I had a near-death experience. The tunnel, bright light and all that. It changed my life.” She says after that, she realized that it was much more fulfilling to give things away. Sometimes she goes to an area in Boulder called “The Morgue” because of the many homeless deaths, carrying bags of fast food. Like “playing Santa”, she remarks. Her family understandably is not happy about her current living situation. But Dorothy seems to be a person that doesn’t really care what others think. At 77 years old, she’s earned the right to ask for a wheelchair delivery between airport gates. At 77 years old, maybe she feels like she doesn’t have that much to lose. Or maybe she’s just learned, like Lady Silverheels, that the things that bring the most pleasure, the things we will be loved for and remembered for, are often acts of great sacrifice and love, worth the risk, even if those acts may result in scars.