Antidotes to gloom as you step into late 80s!
Mark Twain is reported to have said that old age is a question of mind over matter – “If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” But how on earth can you not mind if you find yourself getting physically more dependent on others and therefore feeling more insecure and vulnerable? I wasn’t doing too badly because I was fortunate enough to have two good resident helpers and when one went home on leave, the other was around to help me. But, quite unexpectedly, I find myself in the dire situation of both my domestic aides having to be away at the same time, leaving me high and dry.
Something to smile about: Reading an evergreen novel
My second daughter’s house is located right behind mine on the same compound. She hastened over and arranged overnight for a nurse from an agency to come to hold the fort. The Agency man brought a diminutive girl who looks about 15. She tells me she is 25. Although she is still in training, she is able to help me with vital functions and is sweet and obliging.
Since my mobility is impaired and my arms too don’t work as they ought, I need help to haul myself out of bed, to shower, to get dressed, etc. etc. I use a walking stick, but need to hold another’s hand as well, even to move about the house. I am on Lasix which is a diuretic, twice a day, and if you know what a diuretic is, you will understand how many trips I need to make to the toilet day and night.
Recently, I’ve wondered whether I’m being tested like Job in the Old Testament. First, my hand-’phone needed new batteries just when my main telephone went dead for some inexplicable reason. It was reported by my s-i-l but the SLT repairman didn’t come rushing over. Mercifully, my ADSL still worked, so I could still communicate with the outside world on e-mail. Then I suddenly developed severe pain in my right shoulder and forearm. Because of the heap of pills and potions I have to take daily for various health issues, I am forbidden to use any pain-killer other than Panadol.
To cap it all, I suddenly had an attack of the vertigo which occasionally overtakes me. Thank heaven I had a remedy for that, prescribed by my kindly GP and it always works. My daughter supplies all my meals, but manna fell from above a few days ago. My youngest son arrived from Kandy, bringing with him a load of cooked food, neatly packeted and labelled for keeping in the freezer to use as and when needed – a loving, thoughtful and generous gesture on the part of his dear wife.
Yet despite all this kindness, I can’t help being conscious always that the nurse cannot be expected to step outside her nursing duties too much. She’s been good enough to put the garbage out. I dare not put any washing into my washing machine because there’s nobody to hang the clothes out on the line or to run to take them in should there be an intermittent shower.
The house hasn’t been swept and dusted for a week, although my bedroom is kept clean by the nurse. Then there are the flower-pots under the porch which don’t get the benefit of rain water and need to be watered. What to do? Grin and bear, hoping hard that at least one of my two domestic aides will return soon. I feel compelled to keep grinning even when tempted to wallow in the doldrums, because I’d hate to cause my family more concern than necessary – as I would if I gave into feeling sorry for myself.
You might be amused if I tell you what my remedy is for keeping lonesome feelings and unhappy thoughts at bay during the night. I’m steadily reading a set of books that enchanted us as schoolgirls and their magic still holds. These are L.M. Montogmery’s “Anne of Green Gables” series – the whole works. LMM’s characters are so real and so diverse and her stories so true to life, that they fascinate me, while Anne herself retains her spell-binding charm even after she has been married for 15 years to her childhood friend, Gilbert Blythe, with whom she had some memorable skirmishes when they first met in school. Reading a few chapters last thing at night, invariably sends me to bed with a smile.
But above all, it’s the immeasurable blessing of having a loving, caring, extended family, plus a few dear friends of a younger vintage, that keeps me smiling. My young friends, are not like Job’s comforters, thank goodness. They are good company and their visits always perk up my spirits.
I can’t end this without mentioning a secret source of perennial joy in having the first of my GREAT-grandchildren to be born in SL, living just above me in my upstair flat. His name is Yannish – a Hebrew name meaning “God is gracious” – and at three months he is a bonny, roly-poly baby with dimpled elbows and a solemn expression that suddenly gives way to an adorable smile. Every evening, his mother or his grandmother will bring him down to delight me. These are my antidotes to gloom when the woes of life o’ertake me at 88 years. How can I fail to count my blessings every day!
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