“Do you want to dance?”

She was beautiful. I don’t know why people ever say that age ruins beauty, because it doesn’t: it can’t. Sometimes when you look deep enough into someone’s eyes you just know they’re a beautiful person. Wrinkles and age spots aside. Whether they can hear you, or will never understand a word you say.

Her name was Betty Hess, a resident at the local Odd Fellows Home. I had come under the pretense of volunteering for the Odd Fellows Hoedown. The other volunteers and I had reached the part of the hoedown where we were supposed to run into the crowd and find an Odd Fellows resident to dance with.

I don’t know why I choose Betty. I just knew she was the perfect dance partner.

“My knees are broken, honey: I don’t think I can dance.”

She was in a wheelchair, but that didn’t stop us: or most of the dance couples for that matter. The dance instructor taught us how to push, step and turn with the wheelchairs in such coordinated patterns as found in a regular line dance.

I have never had more fun dancing. And I do believe if Betty had lifted her feet more and I was able to turn the wheelchair slightly faster we could have beat any dance competition out there.

The highlight of the evening was when we waved in unison with our spirit fingers. One. Two. Three. Four. And Turn. Right. Left. Right. Left.

Dancing with Betty was dancing without any inhibition. Afterward, I asked her if she had an “adopted” grandchild.

“What?”

She peered at me intensely from behind her glasses.

“Do you already have an adopted grandchild?” I said again.

“A: a what?”

I came closer.

“A grandchild?”

Eventually, after several more interactions, we determined she didn’t. I resolved I would have to come back to visit her, if for no other reason than to bring her a bouquet of flowers. Why? Because, well, some people need to know how beautiful they are.

We went back to her room and she thanked me and promptly closed the door. I guess that’s what I liked about Betty; she had a fiery spunk about her: a fierce independence that had not waned with age.

The Odd Fellows Home is only a block away from campus. It has free food and there are some amazing people inside waiting to tell you their stories. Some afternoon you’re bumbling around with nothing to do, go visit Betty: she’ll give you a talking to. That is, if she can hear you.