A couple weeks ago I achieved my 64th birthday, an event celebrated by playing the Beatles ‘When I’m sixty-four’ countless times. I have been assured by Cindy Lou, by the way, that she will, indeed, still ‘need and feed’ me at this juncture in my life. Thank you, my Dear! ;-)
I’d like to think, too, that as I advance in age some elements of wisdom are working in me. Currently I am dealing with recurrent issues with my two daughters that make life more difficult. Both seem unable to hear Cindy and my calls for more words, more loving interaction, more caring. My newly enhanced wisdom doesn’t seem to be making much impact on the Generation X front.
Looking in the other direction, though, I must conclude that as local chief care-giver to my nonagenarian Mother, I perform a similar body of services for her I would like to get a glimmer of from my own children. Spending time with Mother does get me to consider getting really old. Sixty-four is one thing, but 93 is something completely different.
The other day I had the poetry-starting idea of comparing my Father’s age at his time of passing to where my Mother now finds herself. Surely lasting into her ninth decade of Life is worth celebrating, at least on most days. She currently has a rash on her arms that is setting her nuts and doesn’t know what to do next. We see her doctor tomorrow for a better idea how to treat it. And to be honest, the rash is just the tip of her ‘need to tend’ iceberg.
In any case, I took that first-line idea and let it grow into a narrative poem the other day. I’m sure this could be revised and sharpened, but it works pretty well as is.
And so, my blog entry today is a Tribute to Gertrude:
My father died at age 79.
My mother is still getting along at age 93.
I used to think Dad got the worst end of the Time deal. I figured he had a decade or more subtracted from his era on the planet. I was disappointed for him and me and all the great-grandkids who would never learn to fish under his knot-tying tutelage. Lives have been diminished because of this.
My mother, fifteen years now a widow, has learned to move through her Life more slowly
while keeping a close eye on how much milk is in the refrigerator, knowing that when it’s gone, she is out of luck. She must always be thinking about tomorrow’s breakfast.
She has lost the freedom of movement she shared with Dad and must now await a willing soul deliberately paying attention to her schedule and asking what she needs. Sometimes it’s a resident where she lives, but most often it is a son or daughter or granddaughter.
Mom worries about messy morning bowel movements when she least expects them. They always cause stress for her as well as a required clean-up that she thought she gave up years ago with the last batch of diapers in the pail. Now it is her own panties soaking in the bathroom sink.
She fell a week or so ago in her bedroom, thankfully not breaking a hip — that bone juncture, when rent, which seems to be the on/off switch of Life. She is very aware that when friends go down with a hip a funeral is not too far off in the distance.
Mother has learned to accept Sparky, her fire-engine red walker, as constant companion on any expedition, whether ferried by car to the dentist, or making the block-long trek on foot over to church in the other building. She talks of someday going without it, but she must know they are wed ’til the end.
The woman raised seven children and watched over a large handful more. She values articulate language and judged children on their ability to express thoughts and ideas verbally. A fond memory is of her sitting with two year-old grandson Noah on her back deck. While I dutifully cut & trimmed the grass, the two of them carried on quite the discussion over glasses of lemonade.
Because of that love of language,
all know to avoid calling her between 7 and 8 in the evening because that’s when Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! fill her living room with words and questions that both excite and annoy, but above all occupy her space with intellectual involvement.
Which must make the many other hours spent in
her small apartment all the more difficult to bear.
There is no small child to pick up and cuddle.
No son to sit with to discuss the news of the hour.
No daughter to chat with while her hair is being cut.
Just quiet. Very quiet.
A few residents have become friends,
but most have quirks which makes her uncomfortable. Like Jean, who questions the sincerity of Mother’s Catholic faith because she can not accept Jean’s retelling of her brief transport into heaven, only to be sent back because they weren’t ready for her yet.
She used to love to play cards, but she competes for keeps and partners burn out quickly in contact with such serious heat. She likes to read, but fifty years of eye doctoring has left one orb diminished and the other good only with glasses. Muscles and brain tire more quickly now, which makes reading less the joy she always knew.
Everybody says she doesn’t eat enough, though
her weight stays pretty constant. Her taste buds aren’t what they used to be, but she often speaks of how tasty a gift dessert was or how much she enjoyed her potato soup and lunch salad at Bob Evans.
If she had her wish, she would be packed up and moved in with one of her children. Best if it would be the daughter with two little girls still at home. Oh, she would love that. But such is not the case. We all have lives and Mother has a safe place to be with people watching out for her.
And so, I wonder if my Dad had the better of it.
He knew he was sick and rode out his cancer treatments with grace, spending months under Mother’s care, his very last weeks under hospice tending.
He never had to worry about running out of milk.
Though his knees were blown-out by kicking in
carpet for a career, he never had to be
tethered to a walker. He drove his Mercury until he couldn’t, which was well into his 79 years.
Dad’s transition took many years fewer than Mother’s. She has lost so much more since she lost him — so many personal gifts that made up the nectar of her Life.
I am not so sure anymore Dad got the bitter part of the deal.
Sometimes I wonder if Mother is jealous of that, too.
Today’s elder idea: Getting old is not for sissies.
A personal thought that comes to me often.
image: Ted & Gert Schaefer around their 50th wedding anniversary.
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