February 15, 2008
"Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man." Leon Trotsky
I had not planned on celebrating Valentine's Day in a nursing home, but doing so put all of life into crystal clear perspective. Call it an epiphany if you will.
For the past seven years I have frequented the halls of a nursing home visiting my mother, an Alzheimer's patient, on ordinary days and on Valentine's Day and other holidays.
It is easy to see that simple joys are better than roses there.
A can of soda pop. Valentine cards read by caring volunteers. A cookie with pink icing.
That is all it takes to bring smiles to aging faces that usually have little expression and blank, vacant eyes. Life is pure and simple if you can have a Coke. Bring in the cookies and the party, and smiles appear and eyes twinkle.
However, my childhood memories of nursing homes are not as great as these. Are yours?
Mine are filled with recollections of unpleasant odors of strong medicine, rubbing alcohol, urine, and Mr. Clean. I happen to have an acute sense of smell, good enough for a perfume tester perhaps. So, you can see why I do not want to "hang out" in nursing homes.
Visiting a nursing home was the last place I wanted to be on a regular basis. Nothing about this stage of existence looks pretty to me.
Yet, oddly enough the place grows on you.
I noticed rather quickly that the aged souls there are ripe with their own version of joy even if they do not communicate it much. As Brigitte Bardot once noted, "It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen."
My mother, age 90, is a good example. While enjoying a Valentine's Day party she smiled and said with perfect clarity rather than her usual confusion, "You know, I don't have any worries anymore. I want a Coke and a cookie."
Others wanted to roll a ball across a table. Some sorted baskets of buttons, some rocked their dolls, and some talked about their farms or jobs of days long past.
An internet writer A. Inglis summed up this stage of life quite nicely in a story on aging.
"At age 50, a woman looks at herself and says 'I am OK' and goes wherever she wants to go. Age 60, she looks at herself and reminds herself of all the people who can't even see themselves in the mirror anymore and goes out and conquers the world. At age 70, she looks at herself and sees wisdom, laughter, and ability; then goes out and enjoys life. At age 80, she doesn't bother to look. Just puts on a purple hat and goes out to have fun with the world."
And, I might add at age 90, men and women alike have no worldly worries at all and should be given all the cookies with pink icing and soda they want.
You go 90-somethings!
