The value of an aged human being….

The modern world has been shaped to denigrate age and to dismiss the very oldest among us.

Dr. Peter and Ginger Breggin Jul 25

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On Christmas Eve of 2017, a close family friend brought my mother to us from Indiana in a rental van with two suitcases and two big old dogs, an oversized Sheltie, and a large Collie who looked just like Lassie. Mom has been with us ever since. My husband had invited Mom to live with us and she quickly accepted as family local to her in Indiana were unable to look out for her. Peter wanted Mom to know she was like a mother to him as well.

Prior to coming to us, Mom lived independently on 28 acres of land on the Wabash River for 16 years after my father died. They had been married for over 50 years and had built that home on the river with their own hands in their retirement years.

With Dad, my mom raised me and my two younger siblings, then went back to school and became a teacher of 3rd-grade children for almost 30 years before retiring. Then, instead of putting her feet up, she did volunteer work with AARP advising Seniors on life issues, the Methodist church women’s group, and the community Thanksgiving dinner event where anyone who wanted could come get a turkey meal — ‘donations accepted,’ environmental work for clean water, and historical preservation. She touched the lives of thousands in the small community in Indiana where I grew up.

She and my dad were both given recognition and awards by the national Izaak Walton League of America for their volunteer service with that conservation group. My mother had organized the very first national youth conferences to educate and inspire the next generation of conservationists who came each year to the adult national meeting. She is ever the teacher. The awards each feature artwork depicting some of the sweetest woodland birds in America. When we were at Mom’s house for the last time, clearing out 91 years of possessions and memories, my husband spotted the awards hanging on a wall and whisked them into our car, hanging them in our family room where Mom spends much of her day.

Perhaps her greatest gift was when I called my mother from California, divorced, with my three-year-old daughter, and working to put my life together. “Mom, I reconnected with a man who is a doctor. I knew him for three days a decade ago, we’ve spent several days together, we are in love, and he asked me to move to Maryland and to marry him. I said yes!”

“God bless you both,” my mother responded instead of totally freaking out. That really helped bolster my courage to make a journey in my early 30s into the next and most enriching chapter of my life with Peter. When Peter later reminded Mom with gratitude that she had supported her daughter in acting on this seemingly impulsive love, Mom laughed and said, “It must have been God’s influence!”

My mother is going to be 98 years old in a couple of months. She has lived with us for over six years now. Her eyesight is almost gone due to macular degeneration, she depends upon hearing aids, she has a balance disorder, gets her dates mixed up, has some memory issues, and uses a walker.

Despite all these impediments, she never gives up. Clunking the walker about, she moves from one side of her bed to the other, straightening the sheets and blanket every morning and making her bed before coming into the kitchen for breakfast. “I want to do it myself,” she declares when I offer to help.

When the COVID lockdown commenced, Mom was already with us. We had already established our offices in our home so that we could do our work and keep her company. Mom has gradually developed the impediments she lives with since arriving with us, and we have been able to accommodate her in each stage. The hardest, of course, has been saying goodbye, first to her sweet Sheltie, and then to her Collie, who was so big she would just lay her head in Mom’s lap and gaze into her eyes for as long as Mom would pet her. Ultimately, that dear dog’s body failed, and she was unable to eat. Mom said goodbye to her at home, and then I drove her beloved Collie — her last dog — to the veterinarian and sat with her for an hour until she died. We have one little five-pound terrier left for canine companionship, and Mom keeps an eye out for her, making sure she is safe.

We are a family every day, having dinner together each evening, speaking with each other throughout the day, and wishing each other good night every night before we retire. Fortunately, we have been fairly aligned in our values and decisions, so we have avoided, within our home, having any large differences of opinion about issues of the day that have torn so many families apart.

Peter has been attentive and loving to mom. Dashing past her place in the family room as he moves about the house, he will scoop up her cup and get her fresh water throughout the day. At dinner, Peter fills us in on his latest writing chapter or other project he is working on, and when there is rare but inevitable frustration or distress between mom and me, he is quick to help us sort out the distress or misunderstandings. We try every day to live our lives with a positive approach to life and with respect for each other and appreciation for all our blessings.

We have a companion aide, Sage, who comes in 3 hours a day 3 days a week to help mom with exercises, and to go for walks and engage her. This lovely woman has brought more life into our home and has introduced mom to Haiku. Together, they go for walks, look at all the nature around them and then they compose Haikus. Sage has been recording the Haikus as they finalize each one, and the composition book is growing with the results that glow with a love of the natural world and the simple pleasures of life.

Along with Sage, we have our long-time office assistant, Missy, and an elderly helper, Ella, who is a very active 79-year-old. These two women have been in our lives for well over a decade and both provide Mom with further social engagement, serving her a meal, going for short walks with Mom, and making sure she has an interesting program playing. Ella drops in every day for an hour to help me with some of the basics, folding laundry and straightening up.

Mom has been flexible and interested to learn details from us about matters such as why we no longer consider receiving vaccines (we all refused the COVID injections). She is fascinated with current events and likes listening to talk radio during the day. When hearing about a public figure she previously admired making choices bad for the country, she says, “Wait a minute,” and pantomimes a balloon floating up in the air, then popping it with an imaginary pin. “Pop!” she exclaims. Television is reserved for the evening and unless something unusual is on, mom likes the Science Channel and related topics best. She appreciates our evening companionship but is happy to see us go upstairs to spend a couple of hours debriefing the day, playing some music and cards, and preparing for bed.

She has been our biggest cheerleader, encouraging us when we hit rough spots in our writing, celebrating with us when our COVID-19 and the Global Predator book became a best-seller, and urging us to take care of ourselves when we overwork or under eat. She is a Mom for life.

I am acutely aware that each day my mother is alive is a gift. I mourn the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of our most aged seniors who passed away unnaturally during COVID from neglect, poor treatment for disease, or outright administration of drugs such as Remdesivir or “Do Not Resuscitate” orders and murder from withholding of water, food, and lifesaving antibiotics, steroids and other medical care.

The modern world has been shaped to denigrate age and to dismiss the very oldest among us, no longer able to work or influence society in the usual ways. Our eldest citizens, though frail of body, and sometimes frail of mind, are the repository of so many of our memories. They are the living embodiment of our childhoods — the times when the world at large was more innocent, even if our personal childhoods were marred by struggle or abuse.

Our senior members remind us of our traditions and values, saying prays before meals, wishing us a “God bless you” when one sneezes, remembering a fallen family member during Memorial Day, suddenly telling a story never before heard about my uncle coming home from WWII and scrambling up some eggs, only to be gently told by his mother that those eggs were the egg ration for the month. That single story knits together the academic knowledge of WWII and hardship with the vivid personal experience, which suddenly illuminates in a whole new and memorable way. Many of these family stories are only emerging now as Mom’s world has shrunk.

Mom has plenty of practical advice, often very helpful. We had a tornado warning last week, and coming from Indiana, Mom had plenty of experience with tornados.  “I’ll stay in the windowless laundry room on the main floor,” she said. “I need a bottle of water, not a cup—a big one, in case I am trapped, and you need extra water in the basement, too.”  I had not thought about water and appreciated the voice of experience. She also urged me to put our one remaining little dog in her carrier bag so she could not run off in a panic.

Peter and I thought about rushing her downstairs with us if a tornado did come and we also thought about staying on the first floor with her. But Mom insisted we go downstairs, saying, “What would I do without you both?”

We are being told in subtle and in blatant ways that our aged citizens no longer matter. In addition to the criminal murder of so many citizens during the COVID catastrophe, the eldest are too often disrespected and depicted in movies and TV as worthless or a bother. They are told they are a burden. Their medical care is too expensive. They are not assisted and cared for in this ever faster-paced society. They are directed to computers they cannot use and told to navigate a world that has turned their backs on them.

In fact, if there was not a theft of so many trillions of US dollars, we would be in a much better position to respectfully assist all our senior citizens. In order to “Change our traditions, our history,” as Michele Obama said, we need to get rid of the record of our traditions and our history.

There are many reasons why our oldest citizens are being made to feel worthless. But the most ephemeral and meaningful reasons are not the possible financial costs of helping the eldest in their senior years. The most important reasons are the essential preciousness of each human being made in the image of God, containing the traditions and values of our culture and family that came before us, and containing the memories of better times.

When I look at my mother she is the embodiment of all my memories. Yes, the difficult ones and the bad ones. We moved 11 times before I was an adult. My father was sometimes unemployed, and he had a temper and probable brain damage from working as an engineer with unshielded microwave prototypes with other young engineers “until our bodies warmed up,” he would chuckle. I was horrified. Now I know that often folks with brain damage have anosognosia — “a disorder in which a person who has suffered a brain injury or damage is unaware of sensory, perceptual, motor, affective, or cognitive deficits.”

We kids didn’t know about Dad’s condition, nor did we know he was unemployed. Mom soldiered on, protecting us from the anxiety of limited family income.

But I remember the good memories, too, as I live with my Mom. Christmas mornings. Easter, before church when we would do an Easter egg hunt in our new Easter clothing. Fourth of July when we would carry a blanket and snacks to the high school football field and spread out over the field with what felt like the entire community, talking, finding friends, dancing around with sparklers in the dusk until the fireworks started accompanied by our local high school band. Driving over to the Erie Canal for a family outing when we were all little, mom and dad eating peanut butter, onion and mayonnaise sandwiches (which made a very big impression and made me grateful for my PB and J on Wonder bread).

I remember learning about all the backyard birds that would come to the bird feeder outside our home. And perhaps best of all, the family camping trips we took every summer and about which I complained loudly at the time. The two weeks spent in the “land of ten thousand lakes” portaging and rough camping on the water with two bright yellow fiberglass canoes my Dad built. We would sing, “We all lived in a yellow submarine,” as we paddled. Nights around the campfire with hot cocoa and marshmallows. Dad losing his temper, cursing as he struggled to get the family tent put up while we kids sat at the picnic table, unsure whether to be nervous or giggle. And the family trips, driving in our Volkswagen bus, of course, to the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and other parks out west. Also, the year, we drove all the way to Southern California through the Mojave desert, stopping outside Las Vegas overnight.

We took family trips to the East Coast to see grandparents and aunts, uncles, and cousins every year. Dad and Mom would launch into patriotic songs whenever we went through the various tunnels surrounding New York City: songs like the Army Caissons US Field song, America the Beautiful, and Anchors Aweigh. It was their technique to keep us all (and maybe themselves) from being nervous as we drove through the tunnels that seemed unending at the time.

The lessons I learned and the experiences that shaped me return in sharp relief as I share life with my mother in the late years of her time on Earth. My love of all small creatures, feathered and furred. My sense of the breadth and depth of our country — the variety of its people, the beauty of its natural resources, the wonders that seem to be only understandable as being given to us by God. Mere happenstance or coincidence could never reproduce such gorgeous bounty. The freedom of movement throughout our country — without papers or restrictions and with great safety, back in the 1950s and 1960s. The quintessential American childhood, complicated and imperfect but filled with experiences and exposures to the ideas and the feeling of liberty and freedom, indelibly shaped me. I am grateful all over again for the experiences my mother has provided.  And I am able to say, “Thanks, Mom,” every day.

First published on AmericaOutLoud.news July 25, 2024

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