Getting old is surely not a pleasant topic for anyone, but for some reason I dread it. I dread the confusion, the loneliness, and the slow passing of time.
I keep thinking about that woman in
1st. how and when do you decide your time on earth should be over? If a 5 year old decided that 30 was old, then that would just be ridiculous. Then people who live to be 100 think that 80 is young. How did this woman decide 50 or what ever the age was old enough?
2nd. I don't think, no mater how much I don't want to get old, I would ever be able to make that decision, or much less go through with it.
Did that woman not have a family? a husband? children? Grandchildren?
That would be an impossible decision to make if she had any close family.
This is all brought on by tuter and Grandeddy. I have seen tuts confusion for years now, and it never really gets easier. She can still have days that take me by surprise (even if I am not there to see it) And mom, as brave as she is, has decided the only way to deal with such surprises is to laugh at it. To find the humor. And I just can't do that, no matter how hard I try.
Grandeddy today said to me "i don't know where ces went today. she was here this morning and fixed breakfast but then she left" Mom assured me that he probably meant melody. but that's not what he said.
Poor grandeddy, all he does all day is sit. He will sit in the house and look out the window. then he will go and sit under the carport. then when it gets hot he will go and sit under the pecan tree. he just sits and stares, like he is looking for something. It just breaks my heart.
He did know who I was though. He said he didn't recognize me when I got out of the car but when I started talking he knew who I was and immediately asked where dad was. Later he asked if melissa was in town or coming soon.
I just don't want to get old. I don't want my children or grandchildren to think of me this way or have to take care of me. The thing is, I don't mind the idea of taking care of mom or dad. where I really hope they don't need it, EVER, I know that if they do need it, one, two or three of us would take on the task.
Anyway, that is my depressing thought of the day.
2 comments:
I will never tell you another story that ends like that one. You don't forget anything, do you?
Getting "older" isn't bad Kate. Things that I wouldn't do or say years ago, I do and I say now! AND, things that I thought about years ago and made into such problems (drama) really weren't problems at all!
I remember somebody telling me that a woman, after menopause, becomes a "wise woman" because she has lived long enough to have dealt with problems and solved them. OK so now I'm a wise woman! I didn't get stupid as I got older! I got wiser! Just think of it that way! NOW, if or when I get senile (a word that I used to think was an "Ugly word" because you called each other that as a put down) you girls will just have to remember how I was when my words could match my thoughts....which oftentime Tuter's DON'T.
It is a depressing topic, for sure, but one we all have to deal with. One of my memories of 'old' came from great-grandma. I remember coming home (from college) one weekend and we went to Justice to visit. We went down (cause, come on, she was like 97 and who knew when the last time you'd see her would be) and she talked to me about the picture that always hung on her wall (the mass unit picture with seventy or so men in it). She knew where everyone she knew stood and could tell you about them. But then she looked at me and said that almost everybody she loved was dead (and she didn't mean that she still didn't love the kids still living, you could tell that wasn't what she was saying). She said it was hard that her husband had been dead for so long and that she missed him and was ready to see him again. So, I can imagine by 100 I'll be ready. Though I don't think I will ever welcome it. There will still be too much I haven't seen yet!
And I think you are right... I think the three of us will definitely be willing to step up to taking care of who took care of us!
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