A doubtful path…

Possibly, feeling a great deal of uncertainty is something many of us feel when we land on the back nine of our lives. The days of looking into a mirror and seeing only our image, not our inevitable mortality starting back, well, they’ve dwindled down significantly. That was a bonus of being young, never having to look too far forward, especially when our feet were firmly planted in whatever the present had to offer. Now, as the years continue to speed by, looking forward is a doubtful path.

Is it retrospective? Sweeping thoughts that bring so many questions about all we might have done differently on so many levels. Memories in the form of music remind us of simpler times when we had a large open window of growth and exploration ahead of us. Growing older brings about a range of concerns and doubts about our physical abilities, serious illnesses, loss of our independence, financial security, social and emotional well-being and loss.

Wrapped up in our doubts is the fear of death and dying. We have so many thoughts about mortality and the end of life that we often fail to find meaning and purpose in life, reflect on our legacies and accept that death is a natural part of the human experience.

Growing older doesn’t necessarily mean a decline in our quality of life and I personally attempt to accept and acknowledge the inevitable change by reframing any in a positive manner. Staying mentally and physically active while enjoying social connections helps to address any challenges and embrace the aging process, living a productive life as long as possible. Still, the doubts linger, gathering like a crowd of unanswered questions, as life’s hourglass keeps measuring the passage of time.

From the Writer’s Workshop: What are you currently doubting in your life?

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I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!

Have you ever fallen?

I don’t mean a stumble, you know, one of those quirky missteps where you quickly managed to compose yourself, hoping no one was looking?  Hell no, I am talking about a full-blown, body-twisting, head-banging header here.  You haven’t?   

Well I have, and it was a doozy!

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Allow me to take you back to around almost two weeks before Christmas in 2003.  As with most people during the holiday season, the typical seasonal madness had taken over my sensibilities which were already challenged from taking care of my mother who had Alzheimer’s and was residing with us at that time. For almost one year, her presence had greatly impacted life around us, she was in rare form those first months of living with us.  Constant escapes from the house and endless bouts of “sundowning”, night after night, allowed me little sleep. On top of it all, my work schedule had been drastically modified to allow for mom’s attendance at a local day care facility.

Six days each week involved a 100 mile round-trip rushing to and from the office.  My return trip home would often send me into a state of frenzy if I encountered heavy traffic; the facility my mother was in mandated a prompt 4:30 pick-up and had a strict rule, successive caregiver-tardiness would result in the dismissal of a given senior citizen from its program.  So, drive like the wind did I, not taking any chances of losing the little respite that I had been fortunate to find.  That was the exact scene on that fateful afternoon.

I share with you my diary entry from that fateful day.

Friday, December 12th, 2003

Secured mother from day care.  Stopped at supermarket, mother refused to get out of car.

Had to purchase just a few items so I left said parent sitting in back seat.

Ran, like hell, into market, grabbing items from shelf like a lunatic. Fast checkout, then out the door towards my car where I see mother high-tailing it across the parking lot at a fairly respectable rate of speed.

Run after parent, yelling at her to stop.  Parent gives me “the thumb”.  Either she couldn’t get her middle finger up or, for some reason, she thought waving her thumb would be much more insulting.

Catch up with mother, grab her by the arm.  Get cursed at. Person driving out of parking lot stops and gives me a dirty look.

I return dirty look and curse back at passer-by, under my breath. Get mother back into car, hook her into the seat belt.

Mother un-hooks seat-belt and tries opening door. I secure seat-belt, again, and hit the child-lock (which I had earlier neglected to do) to prevent her further escape.

Ride home proceeds without incident except for a good deal of parental cursing from the back seat.  Did I share that mumsy could cuss like a truck driver?  

Pull up the driveway, mother asks “where are we?” I tell her that we’re home, she insists “that’s a filthy lie, no we’re not!” Ignore, ignore, ignore.

Park and remove mother from the car.  Help her into the house. As we go in, she comments on the Christmas decorations.  The same comments she made on the way out the door earlier that day.

Sit her down in the kitchen with coffee and cookies.  Head back outside to gather packages but as I hit the top inside step, I become airborne.

Darkness.  For a few minutes.

Through my foggy head, I hear muffled yelling, dog growling.   Head and ankle hurting and sense a horrible heavy feeling on my chest.  Awake to Tonka, our 150+ lb. Rottie-Lab, lying across my chest as my daughter yells at him to move.

He won’t allow her anywhere near me, keeps growling.  Daughter keeps yelling.  My head is almost implanted in our front door (leaving a sizeable dent) and my left leg is, well, somewhere.  Just cannot feel it at that moment. Ankle is throbbing like a champ so I know leg is still connected to my body.

There, in the midst of all the commotion, a voice can be heard at the top of the stairs, causing even the dog to look up. A shrill voice not expressing concern or even offering help.  Not at all. Oblivious to her daughter lying in a puddle of chaos at the bottom of the stairs, my mother stood on the upper landing, yelling, in her typical, demanding form, constantly repeating “will someone get me another cookie, please?”

Fortunately, for her, I lacked the ability to climb up those steps and address her demands, face-to-face; a mild concussion and sprained ankle prevented me from carrying out any action of revenge.  When I managed to get back upstairs, I bit my lip and gave mother another cookie.  

That incident ended up becoming the inspiration for my book, and this website, Another cookie, please!

 From the Writer’s Workshop…Tell us about the worst accident you ever had.

One more older post from several years ago.  There was no need to go back into my memory banks for any other falling incidents as this one took the proverbial cake!  Dealing with someone suffering with Alzheimer’s/Dementia has mixed moments of sadness and humor.  Aside from any personal discomfort involved, this one was indeed laughable but the sad part was my late mothers inability to focus on anything but her wish for more cookies. 

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Through the eyes of another…

Worse than being blind is having sight but no vision. Helen Keller

A very long time ago, I prepared to graduate from 8th grade in parochial school, completing several years of a fairly regimented, religious, curriculum commandeered by the nuns who led the educational charge. Breaking from their rather rigid traditions, the nunnery agreed to have both the graduating classes have a yearbook, of sorts. Mind you, this was not a combined effort, no no, the boy and girl classes were kept separate for the educational duration, each on opposite sides of the school building. The exception was kindergarten, where a mixing of the genders was allowed.

In any event, below my photograph in the small yearbook, was kind of a generic notation, Bound to be a Writer, while the other 49 students in the class (yes, 49!) all had these cutesy little comments under their pictures. It didn’t matter much, I was soon to leave for parochial high school and the future looked bright ahead. Or so I thought but, that’s a long story for another day.

For some reason, the thought of being a writer always stayed with me but I never really understood if it was just something randomly tossed out by Ms. Perfect who was the class favorite and in charge of the yearbook. Did she actually see me in a specialized light and feel that I had some future potential? Part of me felt that being a writer would be daring while my initial desires and ambitions for the future were completely apart of sitting behind a typewriter, pencil stuck against my ear and a big yellow lined pad of paper with notes which I felt important to share at some point.

I did end up behind a typewriter, in an office, where I engaged in day-to-day repetitive tasks in a confined, windowless, atmosphere. Looking back, I kept wondering if being in this environment was my future or did I dare get the hell outta that place while time was still on my side. I honestly felt that the 1965 hit song by The Animals was written just for me.

All of these uncertainties and fears found their way to pages in a bunch of black and white notebooks kept under my bed. Much like keeping a diary, I wrote in them constantly and there was usually a closing sentence from me to me advising to get out and find something else, written pleas to move forward to anywhere but where I was. By putting my pen to paper, I was definitely following through with being a writer of sorts even though I allowed life to misdirect me along the way. Somehow, I came to realize that, with each waking day, there were more chances for stories to be told.

Growing up, I quickly learned that things in life were either funny or tragic but realized they are almost always both. We can all find the sad in things that are funny, most jokes are based on what’s broken, the old, the fat, the clueless, the outsider, the desperate, the bad. It is so much harder to find the funny in what is sad and my writing patterns have, at times, managed to unearth it. Once life was easy to laugh at, even at its worst, now, it’s damn hard. And it goes way deeper than just politics.

There was a time, way back before 9/11/01 where people seemed willing to consider innocence before guilt. Not anymore. Quick judgements flood down like a rainstorm and guilt steps in before innocence has a chance and, if it is contemplated, it’s often accompanied by regret for actions already taken in the name of guilt. We all know the script, from Muslims in 2001 onto to Asians when Covid made its appearance and now it’s Jews, because of Gaza. Let’s face it people, being Muslim was not what made those men bombers any more than being Chinese causing the pandemic or being Jewish causing the Gazan tragedy. It just does not matter. Generalized hatred has become habitual and now it is has turned into an epidemic of easy.

Think about how it was once the fringes of society who looked toward hate for relief from their own misery and powerlessness. The underclass needing an underdog. Today, it seems that everyone feels entitled to behave badly even what they are looking at…is in a mirror. It’s difficult, almost impossible, to imagine a ceasefire emerging from the trenches of hate that flank today’s no mans’s land of despair and discord.

God’s good grace might go a long way in making us what we once were and long to be again. There was a time I would have kept these thoughts locked away in a stack of marble notebooks, now I feel we need to accept the sobering reality of life at present. My own reality is that someone saw my potential, sixty-seven years ago. My predicted yearbook path to writing has come to fruition, in some small way.

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