Epiphany on getting old

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m helping Mom move Grandpa out of his apartment into assisted living. He’s lived in this apartment for 25 years. I’ve seen it go from a brand new facility to one that reeks of smoke, and sounds like 12 continuous talk radio shows, all played loud and simultaneously.

Mom asks if there’s anything in the apartment I want. Honestly, there isn’t. After 94 years, aside from some knicknacks and photographs, the man has nothing of value.

I’m finding this rather depressing. The sum total of a person’s existence is to come over from ‘the old country’, work blue collar, be married for 50 years, outlive his wife by 20 years, and see a great number of his acquaintences ‘age out’. To be left sharing a room and get $93 a month.

So I’m standing there, kind of depressed, wondering if that’s what I have in store for me. Is that all anyone has in store for them?

Mentally I ask “Is this all he’s accomplished?”

At which point, that cynical voice in my head that’s smarter than me says:

“Well, You’re here. You wouldn’t be if he truely accomplished nothing.”

It makes me look at my kids in an entirely different way.

2

Well, can you ask him what he feels he’s accomplished in life?

To tell it to his progeny at this point might be quite welcomed. The majority of people don’t live glamourous lives, but most everyone has some wonderful secrets of heart to share if asked.

3

I would imagine that the ‘knicknacks’ and photographs would be immeasurably valuable, if you were to enquire why he kept those while disposing of others. Ask your grandpa…I’m sure there are some remarkable stories to be told to you, if you only ask.

It’s the memories and the little treasures that truly quantify the ‘success’ of our lives, not the monetary value of what we leave behind.

4

Boy can I second that! My Grandfather had a thousand stories to tell because of WW2. My Grandmother however I always thought lived a fairly boring life being a housewife all her life.

Man did she ever prove my wrong. She was a nurse and she also helped make airplanes FCOL! I mean rerally, picturing my Grandma with a rivet gun just bogles my mind!

Also, I’ve seen pictures of her when she was young. Quite the looker she was. She could have been a movie star if you ask me.

5

elelle is so right. You can’t judge a life by what is left after 94 years.

Tom Brokaw described this gentleman as part of “the greatest generation” for good reason. He’s survived two World Wars, the Spanish Flu epidemic that killed millions, the Great Depression, the Cold War/McCarthy Era, and hard times that might have crushed others.

Some secrets and adventures we will carry with us to our graves. But don’t think that we don’t entertain ourselves with them in reverie.

My mother will be 93 on Monday. She lives in assisted care. Her sweetheart lives next door. He used to be an airline pilot. Before that, he was in the South Pacific during WWII. They’ve been good company for each other for the last ten years.

Just LOVE him. Ask him about his childhood. Let him talk – even if it’s repetitious. The sum of his life is not his old age.

I’m glad that he is going into assisted care instead of a nursing home. He must be able to take care of himself somewhat.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m scolding. I think you have a tender heart or you wouldn’t have posted about this.

6

I have had the “pleasure” of having both the mom-in-law and father-in-law living with us during their advanced years and/or illnesses. Plus, my mother is in an assisted living facility, and I am the only relative that lives nearby.

My reaction to your question… yes. That’s all there is. Sentimental bric-a-brac. A few possessions that used to have monetary value, but are now just taking up space. There is precious little comfort of having ‘things’ in old age.
Aches, pains, illness, heartache. Watching as the world you knew ceases to exist. Always feeling chilled or downright cold. Making friends becomes disheartening because you know either you or they will die soon. Relatives wrapped up in their own lives, their kids, their jobs. Losing your faculties or being scared that you will.

Sure, maybe there are actively engaged people in their 80’s and 90’s… but I just don’t think they are as common as those that soldier on through lives of quiet desparation.

7

I appreciate everybody’s response, and I feel really bad for him in his current situation. At 93 he was living independantly, had just purchased a car, and got back from a solo trip from Colorado to New Zealand. In 6 months he’s lost nearly all of his freedom and independance.

Perhaps I was improperly introspective. I’ve heard his stories (He did a lot of reverse engineering of Axis torpedo technology in Gibraltar, was a well known Scottish Country Dancer in the US.) And what I was feeling was a general personal feeling of ‘what do we really leave behind?’

Short of a very few people who get their names on stuff, it’s very unusual for a person to leave a lasting impression on the planet.

8

Zoe and Shakes paint a very sentimental picture, but one I think that is told by people -visiting- the old people. Try doing it day in and day out for years and years. Cleaning up their “accidents”, their messes, everything out of order. The urine soaked clothes. Their daily struggle to put on clothes. Being worn out just dressing oneself. Too tired to take a shower. The fear about what is to become of them.

And their stories? The stories really lose something after the tenth telling. Especially upon hearing the same stories 3 times in a single evening.

It is not pretty. It is not idyllic. A 2 - 3 hour visit every week or so is not the same nor the sum of the other 165 hours in a week.
Time for a round of bingo, before watching “Wheel of Fortune”.

9

Yep, and old doesn’t automatically mean kindly, wants to share wisdom etc.

I have a theory: you are what you were, but intensified. So, bitch at 20, mega bitter and nasty at 90.

Not that this describes any elder posted about here. I just wanted to make the point that just as it is bad to dismiss and marginalize the elderly, it is bad to sentimentalize them, too.

I’ve had the privilege of knowing some really neat old folks–and I’ve known some immature, just plain nasty ones as well.

10

The end of life is usually not pretty nor does one’s condition during the final years in any way represent the sum of one’s life. For most of us, bodies and minds deteriorate and leave us as a faint shadow of our robust prime or even our healthy senior years. It is painful to watch loved ones navigate the final phase.

Someone else has pointed out that the knick-knacks and photos left behind were things that he chose to keep. If you knew why they were important to him, perhaps they’d be important to you as reminders of him as a dynamic and vigorous person. No matter what, it is the vitality you see in old photos and in the stories that you know of his life that is his essence.

What he’s accomplished in his life (what we all accomplish) is the impact he’s had on those around him. Part of his legacy is your love for him and your obvious admiration of his vigor into his 90’s.

And, yes, that’s pretty much what’s in store for us. So live your life to the fullest while you can. It is only temporary.

11

We are making sure the photographic evidence is being preserved and retained. The other stuff, I’m afraid wouldn’t be displayed any more. (figurines, ceramic scotty dogs, etc. They’re not perfect, so they’re not worth anything more than memories.) Its future would be spend in a box until time forgot about it, or it was destroyed by negligence. Yes, there’s nostalgic value there, but when you compound an extended familie’s knicknacks over the generations, it rapidly becomes something you don’t have SPACE to keep. As an example, we have three breakfast tables. My Grandma’s, My parents, and the one that my wife had in college. We have more than a couple, but less than several FULL silver services and at least three full sets of china.

I’m certain it’s all very valuable, it’s not being used, and it’s just part of the asteroid belt of stuff in orbit around the family.

12

Ain’t no maybe about it. I have a family full of them. Unintentionally Blank, I definitely second the suggestion of getting your grandfather to tell you his stories. Record them, if you can. They’ll end up being a priceless part of your family heritage, much more so than the silver and china.

13

Well, hell, now I’m depressed.

14

But I’m not depressed.

Heart attacks and aggressive cancers run strong in my family.
Regarding recording your stories, or anyone else’s life stories, I have followup questions:
How often do you sit down and watch all those old videos you made of the kids when they were growing up?
How often do you sit for hours and go through the entire photo album?
How often do you make time to re-tell the stories of the current generation?
If you aren’t finding the time now, when will you find the time? And with whom?
And out of almost 300 million other people in the US alone, why is your life story significant or unique? What makes it worthy of being passed on through the generations? Stuff like ancestors coming over on rust buckets, being processed at Ellis Island, all that stuff? Yeah, that’s fairly common.

And Brokaw’s greatest generation stuff? Every generation is their own greatest generation. Each one has to live with the realities of their moment. How great is a generation that allowed the “Ship of the Damned” and resisted civil rights?

15

Even if he was an exalted member of society, be it a celebrity or tycoon or beloved media figurehead, there is an inescapable truth to our existance: we are but a lonely speicies, circling slowly and aimlessly around a medium sized star, in an average galaxy in the midst of a billion more, all expanding at the same unremarkable pace away from the next.

Our everyday existance is a small, barely noticable blemish in the history of humankind. Our everyday lives mean very little outside of our small, chosen circle, and in another couple thousand years not even they will be remembered.

All of our atoms in our bodies have been used a thousand times before, and will continue to be used a thousand times more. We are not only the culmination of our rotting ancestors, decaying former emporers, and our ruined cities, we are built from the dead stars, dead planets, and all the cosmic remants our minds can’t begin to comprehend.

No matter what our expressed purpose, no matter what we do or don’t do for humanity, no matter how much or how little we change society, we all die. Everyone dies, and no one ever wakes up. Whatever you are, whoever you are, you die, and in the context of the universe, your life is completely unremarkable.

But, so is death. Dying is as completely devoid of importance as living. Dying won’t matter in a thousand years, either. People may care if you die now, but given a good portion of time, they will be dead as well.

It then becomes a question of why you live if you know life is as important as death, which are both completely pointless. So far, I haven’t quite found an answer, but I believe if there is any answer it is always be prepared to die. If you love someone, let them know. If you love something, devote everything you have to it. If you love little ceramic scottish terriors, collect as many as you can possibly find.

But, most importantly, don’t be afraid of not “accomplishing” anything. Because, in the end, human individualism really doesn’t make too much of a difference. With a large enough scope, accomplishments, no matter how grande or magnificent, are ultimately meaningless.

16

A while back I took on a project to digitize and restore hundreds of old family photographs, going back many generations to the mid-1860’s.

It was a surreal experience. Here I’d be touching up a photo of a great-great grandmother as a girl in her teens. It’s meticulous work, so I’d wind up staring at her face, into her eyes, sometimes for hours. After doing four or five photos of that same girl, you almost feel like you know her. Then I’d be doing pictures of her wedding, her as a middle-aged woman surrounded by children, then as an old lady, then finally photos of her open-casket funeral. Then on to her children, repeat the process.

Finally I got to the people I knew, my great-grandmother, my grandparents, my mother. And finally, early pictures of me as a baby, school photos, photos from college, my wedding…

In the end, it gave me a much stronger sense of continuity with my family, but it also made me realize how fleeting life is. It really goes by in a flash. Enjoy it while it lasts. Eventually, you’ll be gone.

As for the sadness of seeing someone reduced to a few trinkets and photos, I think you’re missing their real legacy. The real legacy is in the people they leave behind. And it’s not just genetics. It’s a little bit of personality, some wisdom, perhaps even mundane things like a favorite card game passed down to children who pass it down to their children. For instance, my Grandfather’s favorite game was ‘Mille Bornes’. So he taught it to my mother, and she taught it to me. And now I’ve taught it to my daughter, and it’s one of her favorite games. A little bit of his passion remained behind as a fine thread between generations. That’s a trivial example, but there are many, many other things. His humor. The lessons he taught his children, which were passed on to their children, and so on. He put his mark on the world in myriad small ways, which will ripple on for a long time before finally fading away.

This was not a sophisticated man. He never wrote great novels, or painted great paintings. But in his own way, he helped shape the culture after his own values and put his stamp on his branch of the family tree. His life had meaning.

17

I know my posts make it sound like I’m a pessimist, but really, I’m not.

Sam Stone , who taught your Granddad the game ‘Mille Bornes’? Wouldn’t -that- person be the one affecting the greater number of lives? What’s that person’s story? Why is that person now forgotten?

<quick sideline hijack> Sam Stone, does your name come from the John Prine song?</quick sideline hijack>

Vague recollections of Schopenhauer… something about how in this representation of the world, we are all prisoners. And as long as we are all prisoners, we might as well be good to each other, help each other, make it more bearable and tolerable. I assume that means even in eachothers old age and /or illness.

We are the best creature on the planet, we might as well start acting like it, treating all our fellow humans with dignity and respect, while they are alive. “Respecting” a memory… meh.

18

I have no idea who taught him the game, but it doesn’t really matter. It was something HE liked, and that little bit of him has now passed down through three generations. There are many others… He showed me how to make garlic mashed potatos, and now I make them for my family. Trivial little things, but many of them. And his other grandkids no doubt learned other things from him, as did his children. The most important things were the character he passed on - his humor, his ability to deal with problems without blowing his top, the example he set by working hard and treating people around him well. It rubs off. He affected countless people in countless ways, big and small. As do we all.

And yeah, my name comes from the John Prine song. Thanks for asking.

19

Let me toss out there this heartwarming vision.

There’s no NEED to stop being active as you get old. If you choose to sit in a room someplace brooding on past experiences it’s your choice. Christ awmighty, this is the best time to be alive and elderly there has ever been in the history of mankind! There’s literature, writing, music, teaching…

Hell, there’s the Internet! There’s no excuse not to be doing something with your time. Even screwing around on a message board, for crying out loud.

Yes, disability and infirmity catch up to some people, perhaps most. But that’s just one of the possibilities. Too many others have people kicking around not doing to much when it’s GREAT to be alive.

So sitting around bemoaning the fact that you’ll someday get old and useless is pointless. Like listening to the Cure or something. Feh.

Life (and death) is absolutely what you make of it. Behave uselessly? Then you’re useless.