In her later years, my mother would sometimes solemnly declare “I’m a widow and an orphan,” as a sort of tongue-in-cheek tactic to stir up sympathies to get her way in dealing with tasks of daily life.

She often used the phrase, punctuated by waving her knobby walking stick, to garner top services in the frequent international travels she enjoyed as a senior.

Although I don’t have the habit of venturing afar as much as much as she did, I’m inclined to echo those words now that I find myself in the civil status of orphan and widow. Confinement attached to the Covid-19 pandemic has obligated me to temporarily scratch whatever travel plans were contemplated on my bucket list. However, appealing for special considerations is something not to be ruled out of my lady geezer playbook.

I’m not getting a lot of mileage out of the widow-orphan ploy in the tight circle of immediate family. My grown children and pre-teen granddaughter are still unable to grasp that I’m starting to lose the energy, physical stamina and mental acuity to which they’re accustomed. Still, they are my rocks and give me motivation to power through the ravages of aging.

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