When I'm 97 I'll be Painting

I met a man this week
while visiting in a local nursing home.
He was not a hospice patient...
just someone I met along the way.

He was sitting in his wheelchair
in his room,
bald and almost completely deaf.

I noticed two paintings of ships on the wall
and pointed to them.

He first showed me his certificate
of service in the Royal Navy,
then rolled himself over
to a bookshelf next to the bed
and began pulling thin canvases
off a foot tall stack.

He showed me painting
after painting
of ships
and flowers
and even the penguins
carefully copied from this month's calendar page.

I noticed the shelf above
covered with painting supplies
and he laughed as he showed me
the paint on his pants and shirt.

He nodded towards his roommate,
asleep in another wheelchair.
"He's 97," the man said.
"I'm just 90."
He studied his sleeping roommate carefully.
Then he swept the air with an invisible paintbrush.
"When I'm 97, I'll be painting!"

I decided right then
that I wanted to be him
when I grew up.

I came home and got out my watercolors
and painted a sunset.
Better start practicing now.