Today is B's eighty-first birthday. "How much makeup should an 81-year-old woman wear?" she asks me as she examines her face in the mirror. She is delighted when her son calls her to sing happy birthday and all the members of her Tuesday social group join in too. She says she wonders how many more birthdays she will celebrate.
I've become so accustomed to reciting her birthday to pharmacists and doctors and customer service agents that I hand the grocery clerk a six-pack and don't understand his confusion when I tell him my birth date is April 27, 1929.
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
4/27/2010
3/11/2010
man with the orderly mind
Despite the downward screech that is the Michigan housing market, B’s house in the Detroit suburbs closes tomorrow. It’s located off what must have once been a farm road; there’s a Steinway showroom a mile away and the predictable replication of chain restaurants and grocery stores. To get into the housing development, you carry a device, much like a garage door opener; when you press the button the gate zips into the air at such a speed that makes it a tempting catapult launch. Lacking such a gadget, you speak to the man sitting in the sentry-house. “6400 P–,” I say, but this is not enough. “Mrs. H–. The house is selling tomorrow.”
“Oh yes,” he replies. “Mrs. H–.” The gate flies up.
B and her husband lived in the condo association for over twenty years; they kept up with the couples on their semi-circle, but now B runs through the ailments and the deaths. Alzheimer’s. Stroke. Deceased. And now B, a year after her husband’s death, has officially moved away. The house has that flat, forlorn look—carpet exposed for the first time in years, walls bare but for hooks and smudges.
A man comes to haul away the residual items and refuses my repeated offer to help, even after a large metal desk crashes off his dolly, so I slip into the house to give him some privacy. (One would think that with such a peculiar name as “Kosher Garbage,” employees might have a sense of humor, but he didn’t appear in the best of spirits, even after I reassured him that I really was kidding about the “Oh, I forgot—there’s a couch” comment, which I had saved up for the moment he began pulling tie-downs over the overflowing bed of his pickup truck.)
The garbage cans are stuffed with hangers and headless broomsticks and rusting screws harvested from the toolbox. A frequent mover of homes, I am loathe to leave the garbage and cannot believe my luck when I spot the garbage truck lurching its way through the neighborhood. “You saved the day!” I exclaim, fearful that the garbage man will be annoyed with two stuffed cans and my poorly parked car. But this is indeed a day for miracles. The M– Village garbage man, who must not be unaccustomed to medical rubbish and the non-bodily remains of the deceased, looks at me, upends one of the cans into truck and replies, “You know, with the way people are leaving this earth, I’m just grateful for every day I get.”
What do you think of us in fuzzy endeavor, you whose directions are
“Oh yes,” he replies. “Mrs. H–.” The gate flies up.
B and her husband lived in the condo association for over twenty years; they kept up with the couples on their semi-circle, but now B runs through the ailments and the deaths. Alzheimer’s. Stroke. Deceased. And now B, a year after her husband’s death, has officially moved away. The house has that flat, forlorn look—carpet exposed for the first time in years, walls bare but for hooks and smudges.
A man comes to haul away the residual items and refuses my repeated offer to help, even after a large metal desk crashes off his dolly, so I slip into the house to give him some privacy. (One would think that with such a peculiar name as “Kosher Garbage,” employees might have a sense of humor, but he didn’t appear in the best of spirits, even after I reassured him that I really was kidding about the “Oh, I forgot—there’s a couch” comment, which I had saved up for the moment he began pulling tie-downs over the overflowing bed of his pickup truck.)
The garbage cans are stuffed with hangers and headless broomsticks and rusting screws harvested from the toolbox. A frequent mover of homes, I am loathe to leave the garbage and cannot believe my luck when I spot the garbage truck lurching its way through the neighborhood. “You saved the day!” I exclaim, fearful that the garbage man will be annoyed with two stuffed cans and my poorly parked car. But this is indeed a day for miracles. The M– Village garbage man, who must not be unaccustomed to medical rubbish and the non-bodily remains of the deceased, looks at me, upends one of the cans into truck and replies, “You know, with the way people are leaving this earth, I’m just grateful for every day I get.”
What do you think of us in fuzzy endeavor, you whose directions are
sterling, whose lunge is straight?
2/09/2010
all the news I need
To be fair, it seems to be a southeastern Michigan thing, this tendency for the weather, proportional, perhaps, to the number of drivers who cannot handle the snow. NPR reports on the snowstorm in DC, and then breaks for a local update on all the accidents around town. It is my first winter in the fleshy palm of the mitten. It snows rarely here, I have learned—so much so that we are inexperienced in the physics of brakes and ice.
Which explains our abiding interest in the weather.
I pick B– up from the senior center; she attended a program for those with memory loss. She spent part of the time worrying about the weather: if her son would make it from the Detroit suburbs, if they’d cleared the roads yet, what to do about her dog. She knew, because the roads were glistening, that the salt trucks had come through.
Which explains our abiding interest in the weather.
I pick B– up from the senior center; she attended a program for those with memory loss. She spent part of the time worrying about the weather: if her son would make it from the Detroit suburbs, if they’d cleared the roads yet, what to do about her dog. She knew, because the roads were glistening, that the salt trucks had come through.
11/11/2009
persephone, on the road
The eighty-year-old woman I work with has a small dog who has been her near-constant companion since her husband's death early this year. He follows her everywhere, nearly dissolves when she is gone, and defends her against friend and foe with every fiber of his vocal chords.
It is a symbiotic relationship.
On a semi-weekly basis, I drive to the grocery store, where they have the long plastic vegetable bags and twisty ties best suited for picking up and securing fresh feces. I walk nonchalantly past the tomatoes and the pomegranates and the sweet potatoes, scan the room, and pull as many bags off the roll as I can before I start to feel sheepish. The twisty ties come off in a clump.
My traveling companion is waiting for me in the car, with the doors locked. (Years ago, in California, a man climbed into the driver's seat while she was waiting for a friend in the store, and he drove off, despite her protestations, and would have proceeded to kidnap her had she not jumped out of the vehicle when it slowed for an intersection.)
My purse bulges. I unlock the doors and start the car. "Forget about the seat belt!" cries Thelma to my Louise. "Just drive!"
It is a symbiotic relationship.
On a semi-weekly basis, I drive to the grocery store, where they have the long plastic vegetable bags and twisty ties best suited for picking up and securing fresh feces. I walk nonchalantly past the tomatoes and the pomegranates and the sweet potatoes, scan the room, and pull as many bags off the roll as I can before I start to feel sheepish. The twisty ties come off in a clump.
My traveling companion is waiting for me in the car, with the doors locked. (Years ago, in California, a man climbed into the driver's seat while she was waiting for a friend in the store, and he drove off, despite her protestations, and would have proceeded to kidnap her had she not jumped out of the vehicle when it slowed for an intersection.)
My purse bulges. I unlock the doors and start the car. "Forget about the seat belt!" cries Thelma to my Louise. "Just drive!"
10/15/2009
of a certain age
Living as I am, in a state with a fifteen percent unemployment rate, I am grateful to be partially employed, especially as I have found myself in a situation in a position that lets me zip into handicapped parking spaces in pursuit of all sorts of errands. [I am working for a family whose mother recently moved in with them. This means, on any given day, I find myself at the library, the hardware store, the doctor's office, the candy store, the laundry room, the nail salon ("an eye-opening experience for the nail care neophyte" reports yr. correspondent), the veterinarian, the Secretary of State.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
