Skip to main content

Aging Gracefully


HoneyBunch and I are blessed to still have our parents with us.  We are also blessed that they are in good health for their age.  His parents are extremely active in their church and community and travel quite a bit; my mother is still sharp in mind and has her sense of humor about her. So many of our friends cannot say the same about their parents.
HB attributes his parents’ mental health to their spunk and activity.  He thinks this is what has kept them “youthful” in comparison to everyone else who suffers from dementia or Alzheimer’s. All three of our parents are in their late 80’s and early 90’s and do not like to be treated “old.”  I have often been scolded for helping my mother-in-law into my husband’s truck, and my mom is the same way. As matriarch of the family, my mother rules with a firm hand and keeps everyone in line. 
I have noticed lately that my mother rambles and repeats a lot of things, but then so do I, and I am twenty years younger. I have noticed HB’s parents tire easily and talk about the same things over and over.
I prefer this to others their age who have been robbed of their lifetime memories because of some form of dementia.
Though I agree with HB that it is their activity that has helped keep the three of them “youthful,” I often wonder if it isn’t the opposite.  They continue to be active and spry because they did not fall prey to dementia.  I have witnessed some with Alzheimer’s who were more physically and mentally active in their lifetimes than our parents. They were athletes, professors, scientists, multi-linguists. They cared for their bodies by eating right and exercising.  They had brilliant minds; yet, they did not escape this cruel disease.

I hope HB and I inherit our parents good fortune.  I hope one day to be the grandparent who “never aged,” and I pray the same for my HoneyBunch. I want to swat at people’s hands when they try to help me climb into trucks. I want to be known as the family matriarch.  I want to die of old age with all my memories tucked inside my heart and mind and soul.  
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Breastday to Me!

I gave myself a very special birthday present this year – I had surgery. Before you think it was to increase, decrease, or “lift” something, let me tell you it was not cosmetic (though I could probably use a few nips and tucks at my age; the infinite number of creams I buy OTC are not working their promised magic). About four or five months ago, I discovered a hard lump about the size of a large marble in my left armpit.  I had been feeling small pangs of pain in my left chest for several months, but I figured it was just my turn to dance with heart disease.  Everyone in my immediate family is diabetic and suffers from strokes or heart attacks, so I thought – here we go; my turn. I was going to tell my internist about the pangs during my next visit, so imagine my surprise when I discovered the lump. The Drama Queen in me immediately manifested herself – cancer, I thought.  I have cancer. I searched some more and found that the texture on the left side of my left breast felt diffe
9 comments
Read more

Dating Challenged

I stink at dating – always have.   I sputter.   I hyperventilate.   I fail miserably every time. I blame a pathetically underdeveloped gene that got little use before I married in my early twenties, then atrophied, gathering dust and rust, until I became single again in my fifties.   I decided to use this defect to my advantage when I needed to do some investigative reporting a few years back.   While on a newspaper writing assignment on Boomer-aged dating, I sacrificed my dignity and my vanity for the sake of the story (and I got several). Thank goodness, HoneyBunch saved me from all this when we married.  (He comes up with the best dates.) I’ve decided I will “show you mine if you show me yours.”   I will swap dating horror stories with you, but you have to promise to play along. The trick here is to tell about your worst date in 25 words or less.   You must keep it clean and you cannot name names. Our little contest will run only this week and before my next blogger posting.   Me
8 comments
Read more

The Girl Who Eats Canned Spinach

I went to a Catholic elementary school run by strict Belgian nuns, and we could not leave the cafeteria until we ate everything served on our food tray. Once a week, they served warmed, canned spinach with our meal. The spinach tasted nothing like the way my grandmother made it, but I ate it. I gulped it down in three or four bites and it amazed my table mates. I told them we ate it at home so I was used to the taste. Now, my real problem began the day I ate the spinach off my friends’ trays so we could go play outside. As soon as the nun monitoring the cafeteria turned her back, my friends ate something off my tray I didn’t want, and I ate their serving of spinach. I only did it for two of my table mates, but the word spread.   On the next Spinach Day, kids followed me to my table.   I was suddenly very popular, and as soon as the nun marched off to the other end of the cafeteria, my friends and an army of others who only knew me as The Girl Who Eats Spinach, begged me to take
8 comments
Read more