Caroline Lichtenwager lived across the hall from us once. She was a beautiful 94 year old woman with a Bourbon rasp and shining blue eyes. She worked out every single day by walking up and down our hallway pushing her walker and hauling her oxygen tank like it was weight of her entire life. I’d say say hi and she’d say, “I’ve got to work out every day Dave, I hate it but I’ve got to do it.”
Caroline Lichtenwager loved her orchid, it looked like this…
…She told me her orchid was the richest thing she’d ever known. I didn’t have the slightest idea what she meant by that but I told her, In that case I have to take a picture of it!
She let me.
Although she never learned my name even though I wore a stupid name-tag every time I saw her Caroline Lichtenwager was my neighbor and my friend.
I only knew her for four months but she made my life better.
On December 31st 2012 Caroline Lichtenwager died in her sleep.
No more carrying that weight, sometimes that’s a good thing. And sometimes I hate platitudes.
Thank you for letting her touch your life. Those connections to other people, no matter how brief, are all that we have in the end. Know that you touched her long life too, burnished the final edge and gently did some good.
Thanks you two… She really was a very cool person.
When I told her that I didn’t think they knew how to make Whiskey in Kentucky she punched me in the arm and told me that she had one shot of Bourbon each night before bed and it has kept her alive for so many years.