I’ve lived on this block for thirty-four years now, and I love the neighborhood. But I’m getting older, folks. I mean, I was no spring chicken, as they say, when I moved in, and now I’m an actual Old Lady. This comes as a blow to me, but we have to face facts here, and the fact is, I’m an Old Lady.

Also I have a bad back. I want to stay in my house until they carry me out feet first (Why “feet first”, I wonder? I think about things like this. In fact, thinking about things like this is a large part of what I do. My life-work, you could say. At this time.) anyway, as I was saying back there, I want to stay in my house until I die.

Obviously, things around the house, tasks, some of them, are going to get harder and harder for me. I can still mow the lawn because I can pretty much do that when my back is okay, I mean, what difference does half an inch or so make? to grass? And I can wear my back brace if the situation is iffy.

I can change the furnace filter and oil the furnace, because all that takes is vigilance and smarts. To substitute for vigilance I have a list: Things to do to get ready for winter. Turn off the water. Bring the hose in. Etc., etc. Oil the furnace.

Smarts I have still got to a satisfactory degree; I mean, I’ve lost some marbles, but not all.

I can replace the gizmo in the toilet.

I can get groceries on the bus—I don’t drive any more, gave it up years ago, actually, partly because I didn’t like driving and partly because it was too expensive, it didn’t fit with a idea I had about leading a “simple life.”

I can even do small electrical repairs.

So I am not a helpless old woman. Not by a long shot.

But there is one thing I can’t do any more, and that is shovel snow.

Snow shoveling got harder and harder for me, and I worried about it more and more. I am a really good worrier, world-class.

I am strong enough to shovel, but something about the motion sets my back off. And when my back is out, I don’t dare to even touch a shovel. Even look at a shovel. It got to the point where I would shovel maybe three minutes and then go and rest up so as not to hurt my back and then shovel for another three minutes. Etc., etc. And after another while I was just making a shovel-wide path down the center of the walk, which I think is illegal, but what could do?

Hire somebody, you say?

Hey, you try to find somebody. (1) Mostly they charge a lot more than I can afford, and (2) there just isn’t anybody any more. Not on my block. In about ten years, I can hire the new baby next door, but for now?—there’s nobody. At all.

Well. What to do? At this point, I did what I should have done in the first place, before I invested in all this worry. I turned it over to God.

God, I said. I can’t shovel any more.

I hated to admit this, even to God, but hey! desperate is desperate.

I’d have to be, to ask for help.

Even from God. You’d think He'd be easy, wouldn’t you? bur He isn’t. He’s just as hard as anybody. The problem is in me, not in the situation. Not in who I ask. Or Who.

God, I said. Finally. I’m turning it over to You. Please help me with the shoveling.

Well. I’ll bet it didn’t take forty-five minutes. I was walking home from the corner grocery hugging my gallon bottle (returnable) of milk (non-hormone, vouched for by Bill the grocer, since the government doesn’t allow creameries to put that on the cartons; hey, whose side are they on, anyway? not mine, that’s for sure) when who should come across the street and speak to me but Bill the plumber.

I’m glad I ran into you, he says.

I’ve been, uh, meaning to call you.

He has this sound in his voice. Not cringing, exactly, but close enough. Fawning, maybe? “I’ll make you like me if it kills me, and it might, because I want something from you”—that sort of sound.

I know you don’t drive a car, Bill said.

Yeah? I said.

I figure your garage must be empty....

Well. I said. I’ve got a lot of crap in it. My lawnmower. Firewood. Junk. You know. The usual.

Well, I thought if I did your snow shoveling for you—smile, smile—maybe you’d let me keep my Corvette in your garage.

But: You could never get a Corvette in there, I said.

I’d clean it out for you, he said.

There’s no lock on the door, I said.

That’s okay, he said.

Well. Gee. Who am I, etc.?

Okay, I said.

I was pretty cool, but inside my eyes were open like saucers.

Gee! Whiz!

Hey, God, that was fast! Even for You....

Thanks! On and on. I guess you could call it prayer, what I was doing. the second level of prayer: gratitude. The first level is asking—or so some people say. “God, gimme.” The second, like I said, is gratitude. The third level—I forget what the third level is. The fourth level: pure praise: Hallowed Be Thy Name, etc. I mainly stay on the first level, and then when the first level pans out, the second level. Hey, I figure, who am I to try for higher levels? I mean, I’m nobody. Spiritually, I mean. I count for one in the census, but that’s about it.