ARE WE THERE YET?

Looking into the archives of my writing career, I found this essay written some years ago before my husband’s death.  I’m older now and could add more equally humorous events of behavior of the elderly, but I will simply add my observation that the person who referred to the elderly years as “the golden years” is not there yet, or he would know better.  Try this youngsters – Cover your dark glasses to allow coin size vision, place a pair of gloves on your hands, stand at a shoulder-high counter and try to sign a check.  This will give you an idea of what living in “the golden years” will be like when you get there. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the following.

Growing older is a state of the mind we are told by those giving direction to the aging senior citizens of our era. My observation is that those telling us this great psychological fact are the younger generation, who are long on advice and short on experience. The truth is that we, the senior citizens, realize our limits and try to conceal them or make excuse for them usually to no avail. We call these little blips in our memory a senior moment. The older we get the more likely we are to have these moments, and they occur even closer together as the days go by.

An older lady once said that when she and her husband go somewhere, she tells him, “you remember our names and I’ll remember where we are going.” No doubt, this is real teamwork. I didn’t have to grow old to get lost, however.  My husband says I’m lost when I drive out of the driveway. To be politically correct, I’m directionally-challenged.

Memory blocks under stress are likely to occur at any age. One Sunday several years ago, we were standing in the church lobby and a visitor walked up to talk with us. Being taken by surprise, my husband looked up to see his boss from his new job. I did not know her, and he had to introduce us. Drawing a memory block, he could not remember either of our names. So, he said, “Boss, this is my

Wife; Wife, this is my Boss.”

On another occasion while I was still working, an older lady came into my office one morning laughing until the tears were streaming down her cheeks. I asked what was so funny, and she had to sit down and become calmer before she could relate the story. She rose early that morning for a

doctor’s appointment and dressed before daylight. She noticed in both the doctor’s office and the grocery store she just left before coming to my office that people were looking at her, and they smiled or snickered as they turned away. Being a lovely, careful dresser and conscientious about her makeup and hair at eighty years of age, she realized they were laughing at her. As she got out of her car in our parking area, she looked down and noticed in the bright sunlight that she wore a red shoe and a green shoe neither being a match for her pink pantsuit. We laughed together and when

she came into our office each month after that day, we had a good laugh about the same event again.

The mindset of the senior citizen is often dictated by how much help he gets in navigating through his ordinary day. Those who have spouses or responsible adults to help them can become decidedly more dependent upon others. At least, that is what the young psychologists with advice tell us. I noticed this fact come to life when observing my husband and daughter.  Stressed with keeping a doctor’s appointment in a timely manner on one occasion, my husband could not find his nitro-glycerin pills – a small bottle he kept in his shirt pocket at all times.  Just as we were about to leave, he announced the bottle had disappeared. “Where did you have it last?” Kim asked, as she looked in all the likely places: bathroom, bedside table, closet table, kitchen counter, laundry room shelf, and computer room table. He looked by his favorite chair, on the porch, and all the places Kim had already scanned with her young eyes. The pills were nowhere to be found. After a moment of silence, Kim looked at her dad and began to laugh. “Dad, what is that bottle in your shirt pocket?” The nitro was there all the while they searched. Just wait – there is more.

Shopping at Walmart one afternoon, my husband climbed in a mobile chair and drove off alone to do some shopping. He purchased bacon, milk, bread, juice, and a movie. When we came home, he put his packages away. Later that afternoon, he asked what happened to the movie. We remembered seeing the movie after we left the store. We searched everywhere, but could not find the movie. The next morning my husband decided to prepare breakfast. He wanted bacon so he opened the drawer in the refrigerator where the bacon is kept, and you guessed it, the movie laid under the bacon package. Right where he put it the day before. To say the least, John Wayne was real “cool.” We are still laughing about that blip.

No doubt we could continue a long time relaying events that give us cause to think we need a keeper. But so far, we manage to find our way home from church, to keep the laundry clean, even though we do mix up the clean and dirty sometimes, to cook meals, although we have the burned black pots as evidence of our finesse with the stove, and we remember to flush the toilet most of the time. The only consolation to those of us who are older is that we know all of you younger folks just “aren’t there yet,” but you will be.