One more day to live in the sun

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One more day to live in the sun

Five weeks after she had her second leg amputated the doctors sent her home with health aides coming in just a few hours a day. I was terrified for her and for me. How could this 85-year-old woman live without constant help? How would she get from the bed to the wheelchair, from the wheelchair to the bathroom? How could she maneuver the wheelchair through an opening so small that I had trouble when I pushed the chair? Where would she get the strength and the patience to perform such a task?

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Wee steps and slow

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Waiting. That's what we've been doing. Waiting for the drugs to work, for the infection to abate, for the pain to go away, for the snow to fall, for Christmas to come. Waiting. That's what we continue to do. Monday we heard the forecast: a major winter storm. Monday we heard another forecast: my mother-in-law’s foot has to be amputated.. Silence then, and terror, too. Not the artificial kind buoyed by hysterical newscasters who caution people to bottle water and stock up on batteries because of some potential danger. Butl terror fueled by the inevitable…

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Turning 85 is a present for all those who love her

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When she was 80, we bought her 80 presents. It took a while to find 80 things that an 80-year-old didn't already have and could eventually use, but we did. We bought shortbread and jelly and notepaper and stamps and dusting powder and assorted teas, and wrapped all the gifts in silver foil and tied them with white bows then placed them in and around a pink hatbox. The presents, by their sheer number, made 80 look inviting. My mother-in-law, surrounded by family and friends, sat in the living room and talked and laughed as she unwrapped each present…

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We need to see all of life's road

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Her feet are cold and swollen and sore. She lies in a hospital bed, her legs elevated higher than her heart. Every morning her toes are painted with some antibacterial solution, then wrapped in small sausage-like pieces of gauze. Next her feet are shrouded in white. From her ankles down, she looks like a mummy. The problem is circulation…

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Hand-in-hand, brothers all

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Hand-in-hand, brothers all

A few days before Christmas I saw them walking along the street near the viaduct. It was sunset. The sky was red. The trees were black. There was no sidewalk and no other pedestrians except these two young boys. They were brothers, you could tell. They had the same straight, sandy hair. They wore the same knit stocking caps and the same loose-fitting jackets, only in different sizes, and they walked in the same loping way. One was about 12 and the other 5…

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Young' may be in the title

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I wish I had circled the number of times I read the word "young" in last week's newspapers. It, or a close variation, was in every story mentioning Bill Clinton's first address before a joint session of Congress.

The "youthful president" said this. His "youthful enthusiasm" meant that. Reporters wrote about a "younger generation." There was even mention of Clinton's "youthful vitality."

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`CARETAKERS' ALWAYS ON CALL

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A social worker would call her the "primary caretaker." You probably know someone like her.

She's the one daughter in a family of five, six, ten who, when her mother gets sick, packs up her pre-school kids - even if they have colds, even if they're in the middle of a birthday party - to drive her mother to a doctor, pick up a prescription, stop at a market, then go back to her mother's house and whip up something for dinner.

Or she's the one with the full-time job who visits her father every day on her way home.

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Weld policy hurts the elderly

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The facts exclude the faces - old, lined, frightened, weary, faces; gums smooth where teeth used to be; thin hair; knotted hands; parched skin; frail, fragile bodies.

The facts ignore the feelings - feelings of people at the end of their lives, dependent upon others, too poor and too ill to take care of themselves.

The facts are terse and cold.

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A hollow victory for a brainwashed battler of the bulge

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I thought I had gotten past the body thing. I thought I had my priorities straight. Better to work on the mind than the thighs. Better to read a book than work out. Age is a natural part of life, after all. What sense is there in fighting the inevitable?

What's a little cellulite? What are a few sags? What's a dimple or two among friends?

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There are people who reach out to others just because

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There are people who reach out to others just because

There she is, not his wife, not his daughter, not any blood relation, caring for him, cleaning his house, shopping for his food, taking him back and forth to the doctor, then to the hospital, giving him time she doesn't have. She has two young children and works two jobs. But she does all this not because she has to, but because she wants to…

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Wanting a life back

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Wanting a life back

“I want my old life back.”

That’s what the woman whispered between sobs.

I heard her, though I was just walking by, walking past, trying not to hear, trying not to look, not to see.

“I want my old life back,” she said again, louder this time, and I stopped walking and looked directly at her, a broken, old woman bent and weeping in a wheelchair.It was a Sunday in February ten years ago and I was at Hollywell Nursing Home in Randolph on a mission looking for help for my own mother, who was not so old but just as broken. I had spent the day visiting nursing homes and even then knew with absolute certainty that this was one of the worst days of my life.

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