What's Her Name -- And Other Puzzles

For about a week I have been doing what I do when I forget a name. "…wait a minute…it's right on the tip of my tongue."

First I tell my brain what I do remember about the person (or place or thing) and assign it to go find that name in the gray matter. Then I go on to other things.

If after a few tries the mental search engine doesn't work, I spend some minutes going through the alphabet, trying out a's and b's, etc., and quite often my brain taps the brake at a certain place in the list telling me I'm "getting warm". If I put together what I have and keep going through the alphabet, sometimes trying the "warm" item with an a or b or c after it, I have an "aha" and there it is!

Sometimes, having given up, I just suddenly have the name pop into my head unasked for-- BOOM! It seems to have slipped in by some back door in my head opened by other brain activities.

Well, I have tried all these remedies and I still cannot think of the name of the little lady from church, the widow of a pastor I never knew, whom I last saw some fifteen years ago. I was in the car waiting to turn when I saw her break into a run to cross the small road I was waiting to enter. She was 90 years old, I happened to know, because we had marked her birthday at church. She was getting herself out of the way not to hold me up! I stopped and offered her a ride, which she accepted.

She told me she was moving to a retirement home in the city very soon. I asked her to give me her new address so I could keep in touch. She rummaged in her purse and I could not help but notice that the zipper was coming loose, the plastic was peeling off and the whole thing seemed to be hanging together loosely by a few threads.It was the most forlorn purse I have ever seen in my life. She found a paper from which I copied her address.We had a hug and I dropped her off, realizing I really might never see her again.

What a dynamo this small lady was in the most pale, modest way! She was very thin and always carefully dressed in skirt and blouse and stockings and sensible shoes. Her face comes back clearly as a smiling full-moon circled by a halo of thin gray hair. Her eyes seemed to have no color, and she spoke so softly with big smiles and sometimes a demure covering of the mouth with the hand. When she talked to you she was energetically engaged-- as if she were hanging on your every word, and her responses were lively and genuine. She would stand with her stick legs symmetrically aligned beneath her and her hands symmetrically holding her purse, facing you directly. She had been and was still the quintessential, conservative pastor's wife-- nearly invisible but dynamic and vital, and very much accustomed to service to others. You had to admire this lady.

I could not get the purse out of my mind. It seemed wrong for her to have a shabby purse, but it seemed wrong also to have her know I noticed it.

My top dresser drawer held old wallets and small purses of various kinds, some in good condition. I looked through these and dismissed them all. I didn't want her to have a used item. I wanted her to have a new item-- one that suited her -- one that was like the one she was used to. I scouted stores for the right one-- it could not be showy or expensive. It could not be too large or too small or too thick. It had to be in a familiar format having a section for papers and a place for change. It could NOT be plastic. And I did find it, on sale.

Figuring out how to get the purse to her without her knowing who or where it was from was the next puzzle. I settled on a "source laundering" plan that did work well. I sent it to her new residence from my office in another town, with my department name as a return address. There was only the wallet and a small typed card in it. I don't remember what I typed-- probably "God Bless You"-- and I sent it off.

Not long afterward a pretty little card came through the office mail to my department with a mystified but pleased thank you note on it. "I cannot for the life of me think who you might be, but..." I could recognize the excitement and puzzlement and surprise in the words, and I felt absolutely wonderful about it. She never knew who sent her that, of that I am certain.

But now she is playing games with my mind from the hereafter! I just cannot think of her name!

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