We all know that we are growing older, we all know that someday it will be difficult to care for ourselves. I know that this fact has got to be very difficult to accept for the elderly. I still feel as though I am in my early 20’s – at the oldest – most of the time. Yet when asked my age and I have to think about it and my response is “umm, 34” I wonder how that happened. Before I know it I will be my grandmother’s age, 82 and wondering how that happened.
My grandmother and I have always been very close. She is coming to visit at the end of May and we will be going to her reunion from nursing school in Spokane while she is here. She grew up in a small Swedish farming community in North Dakota. She had 2 older brothers (Dale and Bud) and three younger siblings (Naomi, Charles and Bonnie) and she was related to half the town. When she graduated from high school, she taught grade school until leaving for training to become a cadet nurse with hopes of serving her country in the war. About 60 years ago she graduated, wondering if she would be shipped overseas to serve her country. The war ended, she never left the US. Instead she went to work in a hospital in Seattle (I think) where she met my grandfather. He was 15 years her elder, a widower with two nearly grown boys, and made a living as an ambulance driver. He relieved the elevator operator during lunch in the hospital and my grandmother would go and ride the elevator up and down. (My grandmother flirting??) They eventually married and made a home in Casper, Wyoming where my grandmother was a nurse for 45 years and my grandfather was a barber.
My grandfather died when I was 13 after about 10 years battle with heart disease and diabetes. I don’t want to say that they didn’t have a happy marriage; I don’t know that they didn’t. But it was volatile. They had four children; my mom was the third born and only girl. By the time I came along my grandfather didn’t drink anymore and life was quiet. I knew the rules from an early age and never pushed them… “no talking during the news, when you play Yahtzee you don’t shake the dice loudly (my grandmother always bucked this rule and finally someone gave her a padded cup to shake her dice to “keep the peace”), nobody moves Pa’s cigarettes and you better not hide the matches”. Still I loved going to their house and the experiences there enriched my life.
My grandmother still lives in the same house they bought upon relocating to Casper. She is 82 and not only is her health changing, but she has a hard time caring for her house. She will not admit this to anyone, yet when you visit the dirt and grime is obvious. Admitting that she should no longer be living by herself is something she will never do and when it is mentioned, her resolve to never move kicks in. She still enjoys life, she relishes family, she denies loneliness and busies herself with walking, volunteering at the hospital and going to the senior center. She swears up and down she isn’t bored so many times that one has to start wondering if she is working to convince herself she isn’t bored.
It is true that life comes full circle. I see my grandmother not as the small, strong, bull headed Swedish nurse that plowed over anyone – like a bull in a china shop – but as a frail, confused elderly, child-like woman who is frightened by the slightest change.
Her time in her house is nearing an end I fear. Her ability to care for herself is waning. Last week she was taken to the ER after calling 911. She was dizzy, disoriented and unable to stand. The paramedics found her on the floor of her house, sitting in her own waste.
She is “fine” now. She is home again, alone, more embarrassed by the previous week’s episode than frightened by it, unfortunately. She commented to me that it probably served as one more nail in her coffin that Mike (the second oldest) will insist she move to a home. Last fall they went and looked at options for senior housing with her. My mom and stepdad have been up helping her “clean out” her house. But her resistance is incredible. Her youngest son bolsters her confidence that she is “just fine” and “doesn’t need to go anywhere”. Yet he is absent when she is ill, or needs salt put in her water purifier, or needs her pump turned on for the summer. Mike and his wife are leaving Casper in June and retiring to Alaska. This is going to be a hard, hard reality for my grandmother. Right now for her, the next 6 weeks is eons away. But two days after she returns home from my house, they will depart.
They have provided the vast majority of her care for the last 15 years. When my grandmother had back surgery nearly 5 years ago it was my aunt Laurie (a true saint) who went over and buckled her into her brace daily and then took it off so she could be up and down. Now that they are leaving, it will be like dropping a bombshell on my grandmother. Suddenly, the only one left to help her is her youngest (and oh so reliable, drug addicted) son.
Mike and Laurie are done. They have talked to her over and over about the merits of an assisted living apartment. Their goal last year was to have her in one by this spring, before they leave. My mom pushes her as well… but there is that wonderful mother-daughter dynamic at play there. My grandma views it as revenge.
During her visit with me, I am to take up the cause while I have her undivided attention for 8 days. Lucky for me there is an assisted living apartment building on the walking trail less than a block from my house. We will be walking by there daily so she can see the residents out with their dogs, sitting on the patios chatting and interacting. I know that she sees in her head, despite the fact she has seen the senior apartments, a small hospital type room where the residents spend all day in bed waiting to die… a nursing home. That isn’t the option we are talking about. But convincing her to give up her house is going to be like moving the mighty Columbia.
But like the child she has become, the best course may not be “convincing”, it may just involve taking the initiative and telling her what she will do.
First the apartment… then we will tackle the car and her driving.
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