I held my mother’s hand tightly, and she grasped mine with all the strength of her 88-year-old muscles. We stood on the sidewalk right outside the hairdressing studio. We had been standing there for a while. 

Her grip conveyed her fear: it was the step she needed to make from the sidewalk, over the curb down to the parking lot. My car was parked two feet away, running, the passenger door open for her. 

I told my partially deaf, partially blind old mother that she’d “Done this a million times before.”  

“I know. But I’m scared this time.” 

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