Anything But That!

Anything But That!

or maybe the other thing

“And it was over, just like that.”

“What was?”

“What were we talking about?”

“I don’t know, I don’t keep track of things like that. I put you in charge didn’t I?”

“You may have, but I can’t remember. What was I supposed to be in charge of?”

“If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you. What would be the point? You’d just forget.”

“I see your point, but you don’t have to be uppity about it. Someday you’re going to be old too.”

#

I have no idea what they are talking about. They are both old and alone, and all they have at this juncture in life is each other. The guy on the left, the one with the orangish hair, I believe is 81 years old. The other one says he’s 97, but I looked at his file, and I don’t think he’ll be 87 until next week. I wonder sometimes if they don’t have a different perspective of time than the rest of us.

Can you imagine the changes they’ve seen in their lives. Wars, a bunch of non-wars we called wars, a great depression, and a pandemic, possibly two. Horse and buggies and then, to the moon; and 15 cent gasoline. Neither of them ever talks about the wars, but then that isn’t unusual. Most veterans rarely talk about anything having to do with wars. Maybe it’s their way of forgetting it happened, that they were part of a memory they wish to forget.

“We should think about something less morbid.”

“Why?... What?... about being old or getting old?”

“Both I suppose. Some people don’t like remembering things they spent their lives trying to forget or not become. There must be things you’d like to forget?”

“I can’t think of anything right off hand. You thinking about something I should be remembering? If you do, let me know.”

“I will. What are we talking about anyway?”

“I hope you aren’t expecting me to keep track of what you are thinking about, because that isn’t going to happen. Most days I’m proud of myself when someone asks my name, and I can remember what it is.

Do people around here call you by your last name? I’m a Johnson, I think, but don’t have a clue about my first name. I don’t use it, they don’t use it, so there is no way I’m going to remember a name I don’t use. You don’t suppose my first name is mister, do you?”

“I doubt it. I get your point though. Now, I know who I am, because they got it sewed onto the back of my shirts. No way you wouldn’t know this shirt isn’t mine, unless you had the same name of course. And who would claim a shirt that looks like this? It would confuse the hell out of them. A collar name and bowling shirt name, aren’t the same. I understand, but take some yahoo who goes around stealing bowling shirts? I don’t think he is going to understand. I heard that more people go insane from dwelling on things that don’t make sense, than things that do. Somehow it grabs hold of them and won’t let go till they give in or just go crazy. You ever hear of anything like that?”

“Things that do what?”

#

Amos had drifted off to sleep, Seymore watched him for awhile and then he too closed his eyes, and I could tell he was off exploring. His eyes were dancing under his lids, a sure sign he isn’t 81 years old any longer. I often wonder if you only dream of yourself when you are young enough to dance around a room like some Hollywood type? Or do you dream of yourself at the age you are, it seems to me at a certain age it would be like looking at a version of bumper cars, but with walkers instead of shrunken cars. I’ll have to remember to ask them when they aren’t bickering. It seems to be at times the only thing they enjoy doing any longer.

I’ve worked at Prairie View home for about five years. It continues to remain a mystery how it got called Prairie View, there is a junk yard across the road, and a freeway that whines at you when the cars go by. The trucks, Seymore calls them Belchers, they are worse than the cars, you can hear them both coming and going.

I’ve seen people come and go too; no two are alike. You’d think all old people would be alike, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Some are happy as Christmas, and some are bitter; like they are already dead and nobody bothered to tell them.

I get to meet their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and the occasional friend who has inherited the right genes, in the right amount, and acts and looks like he is 25 years younger than the one they came to see, and that is I think because they believe they are. I mean that in a good way. I’ve mistaken visitors for children of the one being visited and have been embarrassed when I was set straight; usually by the one being visited.

If I had to choose one thing that continues to amaze me, is how they can take all the years and experience they’ve accumulated and condense it to where they can make it work for them in the present. When most of the residents were kids, a sharp pencil and a sheet of paper was all the technology they had. Today they are being asked to use computers and cell phones, and most of them don’t understand how they work, but then I don’t either. But they learn to use them, so there’s hope for me I guess.

Some of the people here are now doing things they’ve always wanted to do. Like most of us, when you are younger you have responsibilities that you can’t ignore. It isn’t until you get old that people stop asking you to do things because they see you as too old, as useful as a rock. We got painters, writers, and dreamers of all makes and models here. They ‘ve got something you can’t teach without experience. All of the things they talk about, they’ve done or seen done. They’ve been apart of life, whether it was their own or someone else’s, doesn’t seem to matter.

I’ve learned a lot from the people who live here. This isn’t exactly the kind of place any of them envisioned themselves being when they got old. Once the reality sets in, however, and they realize they can’t do the things they used to, they accept it as part of life’s process. This place, or one of thousands like it, is the only alternative left.

People for the most part don’t want to be a burden, and that is how they see themselves. Their children, no matter how they feel about taking care of an aging relative, don’t have the time to take care of them. Everyone of us has a duty to ourselves that we can put on hold, but not forever. I believe the perspective care givers see that and realize that they can’t live their lives and their parents lives also. They have an obligation to their children, just as their parents had an obligation to them.

Of course not everyone fits into the category of children who feel obliged to care for aging parents.There are some that are able to forget the sacrifices made on their behalf and not feel the least compunction about having any responsibility toward their parents. Some people here are OK with that. Others feel deserted, and yet others are happy as pigs in mud when their children fail to visit. I had one guy tell me, “just because they’re your children and you feel a responsibility for taking care of them until they can take care of themselves, you know there’s nothing that says you have to like them.”

I often wondered how that could happen. Your children becoming the type of people you have never liked and have avoided your entire life, and now when there isn’t much time left, you are supposed to see a different light and like them, because they are your children. I know I don’t like everyone that works here, and I avoid them when possible. I can see where there are relationships where personalities and values don’t match. Probably why the divorce rate is so high. Can’t see people getting married thinking its only temporary, but that’s what happens, and someone always has to be at fault. Divorce is the trap door in all relationships, the way out. It allows for change without having to go to jail, because your thoughts don’t count.

We are told not to become attached to the residents. It is impossible to not relate to some people; they are the personification of yourself. They are connected to you by an unseen force that allows you to use your own language, or lack of it. You share moments like the soft breezes of September, when summer memories remain present, and Fall has begun to replace the tiredness that accompanies the end of all phases of life. Seasons take from the life that it makes possible but leaves the color in the trees, a crispness you remember from a previous time, and sounds that are no longer burdened by the weight of humidity. It is the prelude to renewal, and a farewell to promises, some kept, some not.

Night slips into day, and I push Amos’s chair toward the first warm shafts of sunlight that will magnify the beauty of change, while warning us that It is temporary, we are temporary. I watch as he sits staring at dreams that may have been real or produced for his benefit by the mysteries of the mind that wishes only to exist because it needs to.

I envy the ability age provides; a pallet for experiences to be splashed onto, allowing the imagination to paint pictures, using its variety like a brush to transform them into a reality that we are a part of. Amos’s eyes are fixed on a vision of where, not how or why. A vision that encompasses seconds, hours, days, and years, that materialize in the form of a vision we hold of ourselves that only we recognize.

The loneliness that accompanies the isolation that comes with age leaves you wondering if it is possible to live too long. And if you don’t know, what will you miss, what will you be glad to discard by making it irrelevant in a world you have created to better understand the things and people you relate to; they magnify that understanding by accepting it for what it is, acceptance.

I did not use the word love because love has a Velcro affect which causes us to look at the reasons we why we are who we are. Familia love is an accessory of guilt, requiring an explanation when there is none. We continue in the hope that someday it will all make sense and provide a means for doing so.

Amos’s chin drops to his chest; his eyes now focused on a dream he had hoped to catch, but until this moment didn’t believe it possible. His hands grip the chairs arms, the hard rubber tires of his wheelchair surrounded by chrome spokes that remain reverent. They do not bolt into the comfortableness of a dark closet, where dreams only enter when they wish to disappear.

I watch Seymore walk to the railing, place his hands on its fading paint, and leverage himself over it onto the grass, that also has decided it had seen enough, experienced enough, lived enough, and decided to cast its seeds into its next adventure, where possibility is only limited by the essence of the spirit you left behind.

I watch as Amos finds the road he has been searching for, for 87 years. He begins to walk down it with the slight smile of anticipation on his lips. He stops suddenly as if remembering that he’s forgotten something that can no longer be blamed on a body that no longer responds to his wishes. He waves at Seymore and then looks into my eyes. I watch his lips tremble, but no sound accompanies the movement. I am left to interpret what he has left for me in my own way, in my own time, and for reasons I do not fully understand yet.

He turns once again in the direction he needs to go, in order to find the one thing he believes he is supposed to find. I now have only a memory of what was, a recollection of what is, and a dream of a future I can only assume exists, maybe because I need it to.

And it was over, just like that!