My Mom, Rita, is 85 years old. She has the same great spirit and energy she’s always had… my Mom is the mom who ran races with us as kids, hula-hooped, did cart wheels, swam with us in the Navy Pool in San Diego and exercised every day with Jack LaLane. Recently, while visiting with my Mom’s brother in Florida… my Uncle Ed, who’s almost 89 and still golfs almost every day… he was telling Barry and me about my Mom’s athletic prowess as a kid. He smiled and said, “Yep. Rita was one helluva athlete!”

My Mom is also a Fashionista. Each colorful outfit matches down to her jewelry. (Just last week she and I scoured a consignment store in my town where she found 2 glorious necklaces and a lovely light summer jacket for almost nothing!)

(The apples don’t fall too far from the tree if you consider that Audrey is my Fashionista Athlete and Janie is my Athletic Fashionista!)

My Mom is tiny. As in tiny. She never reached 5′, and has lost height in her older years from severe spinal stenosis and arthritis. These minor details have never stopped her from traveling the globe, exercising and keeping up with the latest fashion trends.

But it’s the slowing down part that is very, very difficult for her. Rita fell last week while at her Senior Center, where she goes to… you guessed it… exercise. I got the call from the Center nurse that my Mom had a severe laceration on her arm and needed stitches. She would need 10 stitches near her elbow. Right arm. Slowing her down even more.

Yesterday, while getting her stitches checked by our family physician, Rita admitted falling again. He looked at her tenderly and said, “Well, kid, it may be time for a cane.”

A what? Rita already has a walker… a high-tech wheeled thing that goes, I think, 200 mph with Rita behind it. My Mom tries to walk a mile per day, all along the corridors of her Senior Complex, and I have convinced her that she goes faster and safer behind her walker. She finally agrees with me. Each time I visit my Mom, every senior citizen at that complex marvels about Rita and her daily walk.

But a cane for all normal use?

Our physician talked about stability and balance and the dangers of falling… then he wrote a “script” for the cane. Rita sat in silence.

I knew I would have to take care of this “script” ASAP… before Rita thought that I forgot. Know what I mean? So off we headed yesterday to the medical supply store. I know that medical supply stores are not fun. The shelves are not lined with aqua, pink or yellow capris on sale. The floors are not stacked with shoe boxes. Glittery costume jewelry does not dazzle from inside the glassed cases.

No, this place even smelled different. And Rita was not a happy camper. I did all the talking. I handed the customer service lady the “script.” I talked about Medicare and all that good stuff… (turns out that Medicare only covers a bit of the price of the cane and then only on very specific canes.)

The lady took us to the corner of the store where the canes were lined up like little soldiers. Tall, formidable, threatening. I kept talking, perhaps to distract my Mom from the inevitable. Maybe she was thinking of her uncles and her aunts… whom I clearly remember with hard, heavy wooden canes that made loud clunk-clunk-clunk noises as they paraded slowly across linoleum kitchen floors. I still remember those sounds from my early childhood. Sounds that meant the end of mobility…

Slowing down sounds.

Then something incredible happened. Among the dark wooden canes with the large rubber “thumpers” were some things different. Some things colorful. Happy, even. The lady picked up a cane… a lightweight, almost weightless cane… made of aluminum and designed with beautiful, glorious butterflies. Aqua and pink and yellow butterflies. Small butterflies in a lovely pattern.

A FASHIONISTA CANE.

Rita’s eyes lit up with the “this-is-not-so-bad” look. The “let-me-try-it-at-least” peek. She did try it. It is lightweight and delicate and lovely and the medical supply adjuster-of-canes cut it right to her size. Ah…

This is not to say that Rita is in love with this new mode of transportation, and it will take a bit to get used to. But if you’re a senior citizen fashionista exerciser with lots of spirit and energy still left in you, and you’ve gotta have a cane for balance and safety… well, what’s better than a designer cane!?

No clunk-clunk-clunk for Rita. Times are certainly a-changin’ and I love it.