Before my first job out of college at 22, I carried a five-dollar bill and my license either in the back pocket of my well-worn jeans or tucked discreetly in my 34B 100 per cent cotton bra. I went dancing that way, walked into bars that way and drove around in my 1963 black and red MGB that way. That was really all I needed for ID and survival.

We finally sold our son’s handicapped van to a WOMAN who was flying in from Wisconsin to pick it up and drive it back. The plan was that she would hand over the money and we would hand over the keys.

When my husband came home with the check, he said: “It’s too late to get it into the bank and as I saw her driving off into the sunset I had a weird moment of, ‘I wonder if we were just scammed?’”

So I got new glasses. And it’s just amazing what it’s like to read again and see the words, to drive again and see the road, to look at a label on coconut milk and see the actual ingredients. But peering into the mirror is a whole other thing. The new prescription has given my wrinkles identities. This deep groove in the middle of my forehead is my father‘s heart attack. He is 50 and I am 15 and he keels over and is gone in less than a minute leaving my mother, a 44 year old widow with no money and no career.