A Radical Sabbatical

Watching the Doctor try to get a vein while she laid half naked on the table was difficult to watch.  She always had trouble with Doctors drawing blood especially since her veins are so thin.  When she sat up on the table, she looked somewhat frightened like a child who just realized, she lost sight of her mother while wandering away, innocently.  She looked right through me with her aging eyes and nothing, looked familar to her.

While we were waiting for the results of the tests, she repeatedly asked me, where are we? when are we going home? When we arrive home she asks, when are we going home?  Dementia is a funny thing. You’re looking at this person you once knew very well but you no longer know them as they were.

I hate watching both my parents grow old.  It’s demeaning and there is no pride.  Their apartment looked and felt “old” and I hated when family visited, especially the grandchildren and the great grandkids.  I wanted the place to look more comforting and inviting so I asked my father if we could refurnish the place.  I guess he saw it as a day out galavanting around looking at new things.  The shopping and decision making were all done in one day and he did choose the furniture and I must say, I love the way their place looks and feels now. 

While sitting and talking the other day, I asked my mother how she likes the furniture and she responded, “its very nice but I don’t plan on staying here long.”   We all sort of laughed but at the same time, it wasn’t funny.  You have to have a sense of humor to grow old.  I plan to be flamboyant in my old age, rolling in humor no matter where my mind is.  I plan to be quick with replies and enjoy my life.   If the day comes that I choose to die, I want to die with dignity and grace.  My mother has no dignity or grace left. When do we lose it? Where did it go?

I had no idea how involved I would be in my parents life this year and how much rift it would cause between my brother and I.  It also has given me a bird eye view of my own destiny.   Remember when you were thirteen and you felt you were going to live forever?  Nothing could ever stand in your way.  You felt ageless as though you would forever be that age and never grow old like the people you witnessed.  This was not meant to be a sad post, it was meant to be a little of both…..both sad and content.  Its all relative….. Its all life…… its all love ….. and its all ageless.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 9:31 pm and is filed under Aging, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.