The End of the Road

There's something that has been on my mind a lot lately and I just can't seem to shake it. I keep thinking about getting old and how we eventually end up. Maybe it's because I just finished the book Water for Elephants and the parts about the man in his nineties in the nursing home broke my heart. Maybe it's because my 92-year-old Grandpa just lost his only friend in his care home, his sweet neighbor from down the hall, and he is alone and wondering why he is still on this earth. Maybe it's because I saw the movie The Green Mile the other night for the second time and once again there is an old man in a care home, remembering times past, sad, lonely, and close to death. And maybe it's because I wore my Grandma's jewelry twice this week, turning it over in my hands and remembering her in the past, and in the end.

I think what is bothering me is how your life typically lacks control near the end. Many people end up losing their minds, and they have no idea what's going on around them, let alone their past. Or they are incapacitated by an injury or disease that steals their life force away little by little.

How many times have you heard someone say "If I ever end up with Alzheimer's/Dementia/or non-functional due to a stroke, please just kill me." Or, "I don't want to be a burden on anyone; I don't want anyone have to carry me to the bathroom, etc." WE ALL SAY THESE THINGS, don't we? No one wants to end up like that. But here's the thing: You could be going along, maybe just in a 'retirement community' and you are independent, but need some conveniences that a place like that offers. But then - BAM, a stroke hits and changes everything. Before you know it - you are there. You are in that place you never wanted to be and you didn't see it coming and couldn't prepare for it, and now you don't have the mind to beg someone to get you out. And soon you are just another empty shell in the cafeteria, staring off in the distance, while the people who care for you never really know you, or your life, or the person you once were.

So what do you do? Set up a contract with someone you trust to perform an assisted suicide should things go in the very last direction you want them to? And what of the religious/moral/legal implications of that? Will the legal side of it ever change do you think?

I'm sorry this is so depressing. Does anyone else get caught up worrying about this? What can I do to ease the worry?

Garden

I haven't posted anything from my novel for a while, I heard some stories about content being stolen from blogs and it scared me off a little. But not much can be taken from these little snippets so here it goes again. To catch you up: Grey's spirit is now visiting a woman named Gwen.

The ladies named Rachel and Carmen arrived at ten o’clock sharp with the ring of the doorbell. They looked like they belonged behind the makeup counters at Bloomingdales. They were so perfectly done up and clothes so achingly fashionable that I thought surely this can’t be real. There was much kissing of the cheeks, and barely-touching hugs as greetings. They wasted no time finishing making the Bloody Mary’s and moving to the deck outside to sit under the umbrella. They settled themselves and began talking in the manner in which very old friends do. They were comfortable and relaxed with each other. The variety of topics they covered and at lightning speed left my mind reeling. Rachel’s daughter’s dance class, Gwen’s house-hunting plans, and Carmen’s post surgery infection (which I gathered was breast implants not only by the look of them, but the motions she made towards the underside of her breast. I shuddered inside when she mentioned a tube). I watched their perfectly colored lips speaking and their hand gestures which seemed much too clique. After what seemed like hours they finally asked Gwen where the flowers and tools were. My surprise that they were actually going to plant flowers instead of drink all day didn’t last long when I watched them perch primly on little foam knee pads and plant four small flowers in a bed, then stand up and grab their drinks and talk some more. And if they weren’t taking a break Gwen was making more drinks inside.


“So Rick has this fantasy for us to have sex at someone else’s house during a cocktail party,” Carmen said while stirring her drink with her celery and rolling her eyes. Now I was listening. And taking the opportunity to check out her body as Gwen stared long at her.

“Oh my god – why?” Rachel said, laughing.

“He says it would really turn him on.” Carmen shrugged.

“Well you are NOT doing it at my house on the 29th! I could never look at my bathrooms the same, wondering which one you were in.” Rachel screeched with laughter.

“Ick. Why would it be in a bathroom? I was thinking in a guest bedroom or something.”

“I don’t know,” Rachel said, looking puzzled. “I just assumed that’s where one would have sex in someone else’s house.”

“Well, we’ll see.” Carmen said. “Gwen – what do you think? Should I do it?”

Gwen was looking away at this point and planting another flower half-heartedly. There was a pause as she pulled off her gardening gloves and looked up at them.

“At Rachel’s house? Absolutely.”

Rachel shrieked again and pretended she was going to throw her celery at Gwen. They must have decided that was enough gardening for the day because Carmen and Rachel turned and went back up on the deck laughing and swaying in their Christian Louboutins. Suddenly I was sidelined by a strong emotion from within Gwen. She had stopped and was standing stiffly, staring at the new flower in the ground. I couldn’t be sure but it felt like sadness, but as her gaze moved up towards her friends it hit me and was recognizable: jealously.

The Bloody Mary ladies stayed a little while longer and the talk was never dull. I felt like I had been given a back stage pass to Estrogenville, and there was a 3 drink minimum. I learned things that I had always wanted to know about women, and a few things I never wanted to know. When Carmen and Rachel left, Gwen wandered around the house with the enthusiasm of a death row inmate. She went from room to room, slowly running her hands over the furniture, taking in each room, but I could tell by her slow and steady stare that she wasn’t really seeing anything. I felt uncomfortable and like something was about to happen but I had no idea what. Her mind felt blank to me. I felt nothing. No emotions. She ended up in the master bathroom and opened up a silk box on the counter and retrieved a prescription pill bottle. The label was turned around in her hand and I could not see what the medication was. She slowly and methodically took one pill with water and then placed the bottle back precisely where it had been inside the fancy box. That one pill had more foreboding with it than if she had taken a whole bottle full. I knew there was more to Gwen than met the eye.