Age

A member of my Quaker Meeting moved this week into a nursing home due to her steady decline in function. She has dementia and is in her mid 80's. Also last week, a high school classmate died of infetions from diabetic amputations. Just two weeks ago, I had such a terrible experience sleeping that I have been sleeping on the recliner ever since. I have osteoarthritis in my feet, knees and hips, but for some reason, that night, a Friday, I awakened at midnight rolling over and my hip seized up with such a thunderbolt of pain it was mind blowing. I couldn't move at all. It took three hours for me to micro-move to the edge of the bed to drop my legs over. Once I was on my feet, I was ok. I have an appointment with a new osteopath later this month and will be getting new X-Rays on the 20th. My general physician, who I saw this week examined my hip motion and thinks it may have been/or may be as the case will prove, bursitis. She said that the front pain is the osteo arthritis, but that the pain in the side and back which left when I stood up, sounds like bursitis.

When I see really old people, tiny, white cap of hair, canes, bent and shaky, shuffling along in places like the super market, these days I take a closer look because I am seeing the future. To me now, they seem heroic! Now I kmow the pain in those bent spines and those shuffling feet, those frozen knee and hip joints. Yet, here they are, up and about and getting on with their lives. That takes courage and will.

I am encouraged in my hope for survival by the support of my sister, who is 20 years younger than I am. She is strong and she loves me and she is generous with her help. Each of us in our family has been lucky in that we have had that from some member of the family at one time or another when we were in need.

The Family should be honored in some way, the way we honor Mother's Day and Father's Day. I don't know how anyone could make it without that network of support, that safety line, that fragile rope bridge over the canyon.

When my brother fell and broke his hip in West Virginia last year, we grumbled but we all did a part in making a rescue to tide him over until he could manage. My sister and I hired cars for my nephews to take my other brother down to care for Joe for a week and take Neal back home to Phila. the following week.

That brother, Joe, did the same for our mother and father. And each of us pitched in however we could, as for example when I went to stay for a month of August to help my father when my mother came home from re-hab after her catastrophic stroke. She was entirely paralyzed and probably should never have left a rehab facility. It was far too much for anyone. Trying to lift her was like trying to lift giant water balloons, or bags of sand. Her weight was slack and shifted and she was much heavier than her actual weight which was only 150 pounds.

My father managed on his own for eleven years after my mother's death with the help of a sister in W.Va. until my brother Joe retired and went down there to live with him for his final two years. He died at 89 and those last two years were very hard for him to get around. My brother went with him to the store, the doctor appointments, and did the harder housework like the yard mowing and the laundry and cleaning. My father just wound down like a used battery and sank into his recliner.

And now I am in the recliner.

Well, to balance it out, I also just finished 4 large 20"X22" paintings (to enter the Croft Farm Show and the summer group show at The Station, Eiland Arts Gallery, the Historic Merchantville Show in June) and 7 smaller 6X6 paintings (those for a fundraiser for Fishtails Animal Rescue). It was wonderful to make the paintings, and each week I saw friends for lunch and my sister Sue came to help out with errands and household chores-the more difficult ones for me, like floors and vacuuming, and she did yard work. She is coming tomorrow for a bunch of errands and to help me get my handicapped plackard for the car, and to find Croft Farm where I drop off two of the paintings for the show end of this month. My vision makes it impossible for me to drive and find places and I can't read the street signs. Oh my, the handicaps we struggle to cope with! Thank heavens for the gifts that make the stuggle worth while.

Happy trails, however steep and rocky! Keep your eyes on the trees and ferns and wildflowers along he path. Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com