I have watched the process of growing old throughout my life. Heck, I have been running an experiment on the subject. I watched it often as a boy, and more frequently as a man. There is one very strong commonality that is almost universal in the process; live long enough and you will wish you were dead.
My wife’s grandmother was a remarkable woman. She lived through a rich and full life. She lived to be 98 years old. She told stories of riding to church on Sundays in the wagon, drawn by her father’s plow team; she used her “new-fangled” hand lever agitated washing machine with hand-crank wringer until the very end; she saw the dawn of airplanes, and man set foot on the moon; she gave birth to six children, and buried 3 of them after they had lived full lives; she was a treasure.
She was also very tired. Each letter that she sent us for the last full decade and a half of her life ultimately boiled down to “God, why am I still here” and “When will you call me home”?
My paternal grandmother?; Much the same.
My father-in-law lived to 83. Spent the last 10 years in a succession of care facilities, and the last 2 and a half in a place that was locked down like a prison; heck, no like about it, it was a prison, a prison of old folks who could no longer remember, who they were, how to take care of themselves, or much of anything else.
Look around you; people are living longer and longer lives. We live in such comparative wealth that we no longer have to focus all of our time on just eking out an existence. We are free to spend more time exercising, we know more about the benefits of exercise on the physical and mental being. We know more about nutrition, and medicine, relaxation, and safety. We pour uncountable resources into every conceivable concept that will extend life.
Still, we suffer from more dementia, Alzheimer’s, cancer, arthritis, heart disease, depression, Parkinson’s, and osteoporosis than ever before.
In fact, the single fastest growth industry in the industrial world is: Elderly Care.
That’s right. All that living better to live longer means that those who do, get shoved aside and housed in do-nothing, go-nowhere left to die facilities for longer trying to stave off the inevitable end.
Face it, Old Uncle Joe no longer lives out his days sitting on the front porch, playing checkers with his cronies, and tinkering in his shop. Granny Sue isn’t puttering in the kitchen, growing flowers, quilting blankets, or playing bridge.
No, the Middleton’s who lived across the street some years back? Wonderful, giving people who had no biological kids of their own but adopted three small children. They both passed within a couple weeks of each other, and in the 4 years that we lived across from each other, and all the times I visited, did a bit of “fix up” or called an ambulance, I never once saw any of the three kids who’s’ financial squabbling tied up the sale of the old homestead for 3 years after their death.
Or Pastor Ron and his wife Maybell. Out walking each morning and evening. Devote souls. My son stacked firewood and repaired cars for them. Money was tight, and their grown kids were far off living pressure filled lives. And like Carmen Wildt, it wasn’t that the grown kids didn’t care, it was just that life had pulled them somewhere else and the job and distance, kids and commitments meant they didn’t have time for the folks.
Whatever the reason, be it health, wealth, loneliness, or disappointments, the vast majority of people that I have known over 80 have lived more unpleasant days than pleasant ones.
An extra ten years of that?
I think I’ll pass.
Copyright © 2011 - Marty Vandermolen - All Rights Reserved
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