Incontinence

I stood in line at the pharmacy checkout. A middle-aged woman was paying for her purchase at the cashier. She was buying a large box of Depend absorption napkins. She was not embarrassed; but she was tense, somber, and isolated. I wondered for whom she was buying them. Herself? An aging parent? A husband who had prostate cancer surgery? I felt for her burden in her chore. I wanted to lean over and kiss her on the cheek, to share community of aging. Of course I could do no such thing. I waited blankly for my turn at the cashier. We begin life in diapers, we end life in diapers.