TheBanyanTree: Aging Gracefully

[Margaret R. Kramer]

My coworker’s father died last year.  Her brother stayed with their mother
for a while and now wants to go back to his own home, but the mother uses
guilt and guile to keep him with her.  My friend’s mother has an aneurysm
that might rupture or not rupture and uses this condition to keep her adult
children at her beck and call.  The mother refuses to go out on her own.
She refuses to call her friends.  She spends her days with the TV.  And her
nights pass by with her eyes wide open . . .  fearing something may or may
not happen.

My coworker’s father-in-law died several years ago.  From the time of her
husband’s death to the time of her own death from cancer, my friend’s
mother-in-law refused to leave the house on her own.  She sat up all night,
listening to sounds, absolutely sure that someone was breaking into the
house she lived in for 40 years.  She refused to do things with her friends,
join a club, or cut the grass.  The TV was silent while she stared out the
window.

Ray’s mother lived until she was 93.  She lived alone on 30 acres of land in
the woods.  She knew her neighbors and they knew her.  She went to church
once in a while, she went to bingo all the time, and still enjoyed hunting
treasures at garage sales.  But when they took away her driver’s license,
they took away her soul.  Even though the neighbors drove her places, she
was lonely.  And the winters were long and dark and cold.  She began to will
herself to die and she finally did three springs ago.

My grandma was schizophrenic.  Her mother used to lock all of the children
out of the house and expected them to take care of themselves until she
decided to let them back in.  My grandmother cooked fantastic meals and she
sewed stunning clothes for my Barbie doll.  She grew amazing flowers.  She
was well read and she kept up with current events.  She had  electric shock
therapy, insulin therapy, and was kept in a room with no blankets and only a
hospital gown to wear.  She took big time psych drugs to keep her
hallucinations at bay and suffered the Parkinson’s like syndrome that went
with keeping her sanity.  She learned to live alone in an assisted living
complex and took great pride in that.  She participated in all the
activities and went to lunch with her neighbors.  But when she had a mild
stroke and its damage was enough to affect her living independently, she
said her life was over and willed herself to die within eight months of her
stroke.

My ex mother-in-law was born in Germany.  She lived through World War I and
World War II.  She lived through Germany’s Great Depression and the
aftermath of World War II when everything was rubble.  She came to the
United States as a bride in the early 50s.  She got the mumps shortly after
arriving here and lost some of her hearing.  She was never able to learn
English very well and her conversations were a mixture of German and
English.  Thank goodness I learned German in high school and college!  She
had her last child, my ex-husband, when she was 47 years old.  Her husband
died in his sleep.  But she kept going.  She never learned to drive, and
took the bus everywhere.  She would walk the two blocks to attend mass every
morning.  She walked to the grocery store.  She would take the bus to get
spring water and carry the heavy jugs home.  Every summer she would go to
the State Fair with her bag lunch and thermos of coffee and spend less than
$5.  She grew amazing flowers in her garden.  She loved Ted Koppel and
Nightline and thought Koppel should run for President.  She kept walking
even when her legs were barely functional.  She became a US citizen.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
Be a star!

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.  It sings because it has a
song.
~Chinese Proverb