Truths: Life is not so simple

So, we have been in FL visiting my parents for Thanksgiving. We got back late Tuesday night because our flight was delayed and sat on a plane where we felt like sardines. But we arrived home and passed out.

Yesterday, was Abby’s birthday. So, I awoke, to a now 12 year old, panicked about what she was going to wear to school.

I also woke up to a broken furnace and a leak in the kitchen ceiling coming from the master bath shower.

I got the emotional adolescent off to school – she could barely contain herself to see her locker which was going to be decorated by her best friends and I could barely open my eyes and face what was going to be my day…

While I was in FL, my grandma ended up in the hospital – for what they thought was congestive heart failure. It turns out that she needed more medicine for her high blood pressure and to limit her salt intake.

Yesterday, I went to pick her up at the hospital where she was staying in the extended care unit. Basically that just means it is all old people who are being kept for observation before they let them go back home or ship them to a nursing facility.

In other words… it is a very depressing place.

If you have ever been to a nursing home – you can understand the smell that goes along with it. I have worked knee deep in animal shelters and still the stench made my stomach turn.

But, more upsetting than that – is the truth – there are all these elderly people – who are basically coming to the end of their lives. Some had strokes, others pneumonia, heart attacks, cancer… and while young people would be able to overcome those things with a hard fight – these people don’t have the fight in them.

My grandma will be 91 in a month. She had never been in the hospital before (except for chilbirth) and has been healthier than a horse. But when I saw her – it was as though she had aged 100 years. The vibrancy and the stamina had disappeared… Instead, she looked grey and weak and old.

I know that 91 is old – but for my whole life my grandma has been young. Always dolled up – boasting jewels and nylons and high heels. She never left the house without her make-up done and her hair curled. And, here she was - practically naked in a bed – without any of her things.

My grandma has always been hip – she knows that Sandra Bullock got divorced – she knows that Tiger Woods cheated – she knows that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston should have never got divorced!

She talks about sex and religion like it’s a cookie recipe and has always known how to shop like there is no tomorrow.

So, it is hard to see her become frail – to see her get old…

And it is really hard to face the fact that when we get old – we become so very alone. Almost all of the people in the hospital yesterday on her floor were alone. They didn’t have visitors. Who knows where their families were… or how long it had been since they saw them last.

They were all relying on the nurses to care for them – to treat them with dignity and respect and to make them comfortable.

One lady who shared my grandma’s room had had a bad stroke – and was literally reliant on a myriad of staff to care for her – she could barely speak – and couldn’t move but a finger.

It’s the kind of thing none of us want to think about: where we will be when we turn 90 – who will be around us and looking out for us when we have lost the ability to do it for ourselves…

After my grandma got dressed and while we were speaking to the discharge nurse – my grandma was trying to zipper her sweater. I watched for some time as she struggled – unsure of when to offer help… and then I finally just did and she was grateful.

And that is when it hit me the hardest – 30 plus years ago – my grandma probably zipped up my sweater – tied my shoes – helped me get in the car… and now it was my turn to do the same for her…I was happy that I could re-pay the act – but sad inside that it has come down to this.

There is no doubt that a lot of **** has gone wrong in my life these last few weeks… and while I have known all along that it was petty stuff – it has taken over my life and left me taking for granted the magnitude of life and death.

My daughter turned 12 yesterday and for the first time in my life I saw my grandma as 90 and I fall almost exactly in between… No longer a struggling adolescent, irresponsible 20 year old or a 30 year old woman trying to defy my age.

I turn 40 next month – and am coming to terms with aging. I am finding out that its not about what boy likes you or what click you belong to, its not about where you went to college or how drunk you got last night and its not about dress size or jean size or profession or what house you live in.

It is about who you have around you – who you love and who you take the time to help and what you do to make a difference in this world.

Its not that any one of us thought life was simple – its just that none of us ever think its going to be THIS hard.