Webster: On 2/3/2026, age 103.  Predeceased by her husband, Harry. Survived by four children, Doug Barton-Smith, Kathie (Victor) Laudisio, Greg (Linda) Smith, and Mark (Joyce) Smith; two brothers, Frank (Gloria) McAlpin and John (Mary) McAlpin, seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

     Friends may call 1-4 pm Monday, 2/9/2026 at Willard H. Scott Funeral Home, 12 South Ave., Webster.  Mass of Christian Burial at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 2/10, at Holy Trinity Church, 1460 Ridge Rd., Webster.

Riddle of the Sphinx, for Dorothy

     My maternal grandmother, who died at the age of 103, used to say of aging: “you go out the way you came in.”

     That line is, of course, a variation on the ancient Riddle of the Sphinx: what creature has one voice, but walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening? The answer is people, who crawl on all fours as a baby, walk on two legs as an adult, and use a walking cane in their old age. 

     It might be more accurate, now that doctors and drugs and machines can extend life beyond the walking cane stage, to amend the riddle to include a second infancy.

     Grandma understood, and accepted better than most, that her body and mind would fail, and that the last few years of her life would mirror the first few. Someone else would need to feed her, bathe her, and clothe her.

     Visiting her in her nursing home, my mother would sometimes report that Grandma would chastise her for not politely greeting the invisible people in the other corner of her room, or wonder aloud why my grandfather, who had been dead for twenty years, was so late. Most days she would just sleep. 

     I remain grateful for Mom’s sake that, unlike many elderly people, Grandma’s demure personality did not change as her mind deteriorated. She was, in her rare periods of lucidity, as pleasant, grateful, and respectful as she had always been. I’m sure this was appreciated by her visitors, both real and imaginary.

     People sometimes speak of “aging with dignity,” as if there’s a simple way to retain the dignity you enjoyed for eight or nine decades when you must now rely on another person to thicken your liquids or change your diaper, to help you stand or to remember who your loved ones are. 

     Imagine, after a century of life and decades caring for others, becoming an infant again!

     Imagine the guts it takes to accept that!

     As my grandmother was dying I found my thoughts turning, unbidden, to certain sense memories of my own early childhood when we’d visit her house. These impressions, I imagine, are not unlike what a baby or a 103-year-old experiences: brief flashes of sensation, etched in memory if not fully understood, meaningful in a vague but indelible way.

     I recalled, or thought I recalled, the feel of the thick blue carpet of her living room underneath my hands as I played on the floor. Crawling through a “secret passageway,” probably just a wall panel that had been temporarily removed, between a hallway closet and the bathroom. Floral patterns of indeterminate color on a couch. The hourly chiming of the grandfather clock. A dartboard in the basement with a baseball theme, a checkerboard floor pattern. Towering stalks of raspberry bushes in the backyard garden, sticky hands, the nausea after having gorged myself on the sweet fruit.

     I thought also of watching my own children as babies, how their wide eyes would lock on mine as they’d squirm on their play mat, their squeals of shock the first time they tried a popsicle, their insatiable need to touch and taste everything that came within their miniature sphere of control. I recalled, distinctly now, wondering how much was being processed and retained in their rapidly-growing brains as they grappled with their newfound senses. Whether their inner world was a terrifying jumble of confusion or a maze of delightful novelties or something in between.

     The world they have inherited is much more comfortable than the one their great-grandmother inhabited. Whether it is any saner is up for debate.

     Although by the end Grandma could no longer stand, I will remember her as having stood firmly within herself, sustained by a deep faith that I don’t share but might, in some measure, envy. I’d like to believe that’s what might persist in some way when we lose the rest of ourselves. 

     I hear again the chiming of the Westminster Quarters on her grandfather clock, and think of the melody’s prayer:

     O Lord our God, Be Thou our guide That byThy help  No foot may slide.

     February 4, 2026

                - Author: Jim Laudisio