It was a nice, crisp fall day, sunny and pleasant. I thought I’d take a walk down to the mail house, about a half mile away, to pick up today’s mail. It was late afternoon, when I was reasonably sure that the mail would have been delivered. Perhaps a package or two, as Her Ladyship has begun her Christmas shopping. Good exercise while the weather is nice. Too soon, the streets will be snow covered and the temperatures a bit chilly for my taste.
So, off I went to fetch everything. I wasn’t anticipating much of value, because we don’t have any upcoming birthdays or special anniversaries. Probably a bill or two to brighten my day, and an assortment of fliers – some campaign stuff or for new tires. What I found, though, did not improve my mood much. Two first-class pieces of mail. One was from the New Hampshire Cremation Society. A survey, of all things, asking about our end-of-life views. Really? Yes, I know I’m getting older, but . . . . It actually reminded me of a t-shirt I saw in a catalog a few years back, that read, “Cremation is about the only way I’ll get a smoking hot body.” Amusing at the time, and less so as the years tick by.
The other mail was a donation solicitation to the Alzheimer’s Association. Great – one more reminder that I might be coming closer and closer to the cliff of mental decline. Perhaps I’ll be like Betty White or Mel Brooks – reasonably alert until . . . . . whatever. It’s a question mark, though. Longevity was not terribly remarkable in my mother’s family, other than an aunt that lived well into her eighties. There is a fair bit of it in my father’s, though, but they all tended to favor the mildly to considerably off-balance, so it was very hard to determine if dementia had set in. One of my grandmother’s brothers didn’t go out of the house at all, and a sister ended up in a sanitarium. So, as we’ve quoted so often from “Big Bang Theory”, they were “looking at quirky in the rearview mirror.” Yes, many of my relatives were.
Getting older is, as my aunt used to say, “not for sissies”. The challenges get bigger. Sometimes just getting out of bed in the morning seems insurmountable. Gravity defies us. Our teeth, intended surely to last a lifetime, are going the way of the Acropolis and the Roman Colosseum. At least two of three phone calls coming into the house are about benefits for final expenses or Medicare supplements and benefits for which we might qualify. Every bit of advertising on our preferred television channels relates to walk-in bathtubs and showers, medications for declining bone density or blood pressure. Or they warn us not to take them if we’re over 50 and have any number of elder medical conditions, which if course, we do. My favorite is “don’t take this if you are experiencing dementia.” I won’t, of course, probably because I’ll forget to take it anyway.
One of the hardest parts of growing older is accepting a degree of risk for things we used to take for granted. Herself gets a bit agitated when I need to go up or down the cellar stairs. She always cautions me to “be careful.” No, no. I plan to throw caution to the wind and take the stairs two at a time. Or our daughter, currently in Atlanta, will warn me in her sternest voice, not to do something, or to wait until she’s home. That could be months away. I can’t do that! The deck furniture could be under a foot of snow by then. My brother-in-law came to dinner the other night, and told us that he’ll be closing up the summer camp soon. His son, our nephew, made him a list of things he’s not, under any circumstances, to do by himself. Are you going to do any of them, we asked? “Oh, hell yes”, he responded. Fortunately, living in a condo relieves me of multiple burdens. Lawn care, plowing and shoveling show. I have no idea where the car scraper is, as I haven’t used it in years. If there’s a frost, I stay home with the car safely in the garage. I keep a good supply of walkway de-icer handy, because a fall is a clear and ever-present danger. I can’t bounce back up quite as I did a few years back.
As I mentioned before, at a certain age (and I’m not sure what that is), gravity is no longer our friend. Roughly two thirds of what I pick up slips out of my hands. That, of course, often requires picking something up, and if it is in pieces, cleaning it up. A jar of something messy, like tomato sauce or mustard. A bottle of water, thoughtfully filled to the brim and housed in plastic so thin that you can practically breathe through it.
My fall cleaning up is beginning, and I really need all the leaves on the trees to fall at once. They don’t, of course, so I have to make repeated passes with my leaf blower. Which I keep in the basement, so up and down the stairs. More warnings to “be careful”. I’ve done about as much gardening as I plan to do for the year, but now it’s time to empty out the containers and put them away for the winter.
Just this morning I tried to open up a new case of toilet paper. Yes, many of us remember just a few years back when we bought it in packs of two or four, and that would last us for a while. Not anymore. This was an 8-pack, thoughtfully encased in bulletproof plastic. It took me tens of minutes to get it open, finally with a large knife. My guess is that the manufacturer doesn’t want the multipacks to fall apart in the truck on the way to the store. I get that, but could they also give some consideration to those of us whose finger dexterity is in steady decline? Yes, it’s true. Our fingers won’t do comfortably what they did. If you’ve stood trying to open one of those produce bags at the supermarket, you know just what I mean. The plastics industry as a whole hates us. The plastic water bottles, mentioned above, that snap-crackle-and-pop at us for no reason. Anything that’s encased in plastic is challenging. Food containers, paper towel, and yes, pill bottles are fighting back. Even candy bar wrappers have become impenetrable. And yes, I know I shouldn’t be eating them, what with elevated blood sugar and all. And what’s up with that? My blood sugar levels were fine until a few years ago, and then, Wham. Now I have a kit to check it every morning.
By rights, we should be getting better and more valuable with age, like fine wine and antiques. We should be able to maintain our “structural integrity”. But, no. The decline happens in bunches. The bones lose “density”. I thought mine were like Stonehenge – they’d last as I’d need them. And teeth. What happened here? Every time I go for a cleaning, my dentist tells me I need more repair work than the Boston subway system. I’m not sure whether he has my dental health or his investment portfolio in mind. I had cataracts removed a couple of years ago, so my vision is pretty good right now. That won’t last. And I do need “readers”, which I keep handy everywhere because neither my joints nor my memory let me move quite as easily and with purpose from room to room as I once did. But, no mind, because if I just had one pair, I’d forget where I put them and I’d wander about the house looking. Just easier to buy a set in every important spot, by the case.
And so, my faithful readers, as I use my “grabbers” more and more to pick things up that I’ve dropped, as the stairs get steeper and steeper, and a step ladder becomes the Matterhorn, I advise you to stay safe and healthy. Have confidence in yourself. Try backing your car into a parking space, unless there are cars on either side. If you can’t reach something on the top shelf at the grocery store, don’t hesitate to ask the nearest tall person for assistance. There’s nothing wrong with that. And avoid using the phrase, “well, in my day” to make a point. Advertisers do tend to point their products in our direction. When we’re watching our favorite shows, and all of the commercials relate to walk-in tubs and showers, joint ache medications or over-the-counter brain enhancements, just ignore them. They’re for other, much older people. Sit back in your recliner and think to yourself, “thank God I’m not there.”
Most important, treasure each day while you still can. Think of putting on your underwear in the morning as an opportunity to check out the rapid response of 911. Or a trip to the grocery store as a way to see if anyone is actually paying attention to those handicapped signs and spaces. If the cashier asks for your ID when you buy a bottle of wine, that’s a bonus. And above all, keep enjoying life!
