Assisted Living? Not on Your Nelly!
Sixteen Going On Eighty-Five
By Joan Opyr, 3-17-07
She’s at it again. My grandmother, who recently turned 85, is thumbing her nose at Death. She recently suffered a scary bout of pernicious anemia. She was in the hospital for three days, getting blood transfusions and packed cells, but she looked the Grim Reaper in the face and flipped him the bird. My grandmother is stubborn, wily, ornery and tough, all qualities I admire. I sincerely hope she goes right on being as independent as she can, and as bloody-minded as she likes. I just wish she’d stop giving her friends and family the finger as well.
She needs to move into assisted living, but try telling her that. I did and she hung up on me. Twice. Assisted living? I can kiss Aunt Fanny! When did I get to be so bossy? She thought I’d been an English major in college. She didn’t realize that I’d been to medical school. Is Doctor Know-It-All in? How much does she charge? Does she take Medicare?
I ignored all of this and suggested that it might be time for my grandmother to change quacks. She might need (gasp) a geriatric specialist.
“Why?” she said.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe because you’re 85?”
“I might be 85, but I am not planning to die.”
“I’m glad of it,” I said. “A geriatric specialist might help you with that.”
“I like my regular doctor. He’s nice.”
“Would that be the doctor who failed to diagnose your anemia? The doctor who never asks questions and lets you get away with murder?”
“I do not need a geriatric anything.”
“No,” I agreed. “You’re right. Would you like me to find you a pediatrician?”
Click.
It’s not easy getting older. I am forty myself—a baby, my grandmother says, but if so, then I’m a baby with a sore back, clicking knees, and a pair of wheezing lungs that tell me with near 100% certainty when it’s going to rain. My kids will no longer stand behind my chair and pluck the gray hairs from my head because they “don’t have all day.” I’m not complaining. Forty is fine. I am glad to be forty. I wouldn’t be twenty again on a bet. The thing is, though, that apart from the gray hair and this crop of wrinkles that someone seems to be farming on my forehead, I don’t feel old. When I wake up, I feel just the same as I did at sixteen. The only difference now is that when I get out of bed, bits of me creak.
I have a picture on my dresser of my grandmother at sixteen. It’s 1938 and she’s wearing a dress she sewed herself in Home Economics class. She’s smiling at the camera, brown-eyed, happy, and full of life. That same face smiles out at me now—when I’m not playing Doctor Know-It-All—and I know that she and I are really the same age. Our bodies are just playing tricks on us, that’s all. I want to keep her safe, but even more importantly, I want her to be happy. How best to do it—that’s the trick.
Assisted living. If only we could make it more like summer camp.
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Comments
A thought that crossed her mind
Whenever she would look into
A mirror, see face was lined.
She told me then, and I agreed,
That what no one will tell
Is that as body ages we
Don't ring that mental bell.
Somewhere betwixt the lessons taught
Of "aging" for us all,
No one prepares us for the fact
Our MINDS don't age at all!
They may lock in at age eighteen;
Perhaps at twenty-two.
But don't expect that mental age
To age as your JOINTS do!!!
She told me when she walked out of
The shower and would glance
Into the mirror it startled her!
When did THAT view advance??!
Or when she happened to look, see
Her image walkin' by
Shop windows, there to catch a glance,
Her MIND would wonder "WHY?"
WHY was that brain, still just EIGHTEEN,
Encased within THAT frame?!??!
How could that BE, she'd wonder then;
Illusion to defame??!
So just beware, as time goes by;
Her words were very true.
And be advised they will apply
Some future date to YOU!!!
It is not gramma who MOST needs
An attitude adjust.
It is the world we've come to see
Where OLD age is a must.
Why would we ever want to live
Beyond that time, that day,
When we can rise and flip a bird
To those who cloud our way?
I think I'll tattoo on my chest,
Right there above a boob,
DO NOT RESUSCITATE or I
Will kill you on youtube!
I'll manufacture video;
I'll hang you from a tree;
I'll show you naked being eaten
By an ant or bee!
You get back there to gramma NOW!
You give her great BIG kiss!!!
At top of lungs scream "YOU GOOOOOOOOO GIRL!"
Or you will be remiss.
If EVER she decides to ASK
For "assist" with a day,
Step up to bat and offer YOU
To help her make her way.
Why do we in this day and age
Forget who held us tight;
Forget who dried our tears and hugged
Us every single night?
We did not grow nor did we age
A single year we live
Without the benefits of havin'
LOVE our "elders" give.
So do for her what YOU might want
When "old age" comes around
To make YOUR body older than
YOUR brain waves that still sound.
If YOU would like to then be caged
So "trouble" you won't be
To anyone related to you,
Might be what you'll see.
But for a lady with the spunk
To flip a bird a day,
That ain't what she is needin' as
She plods along the way.
One MINUTE happy, flippin' birds,
Is worth a million years
Caged in "assisted living camp".
GO POUR GRAMMA SOME BEERS!!!
... and hurry up while she still gives a damn!!!