Tag: aging

Living With What the Holidays Bring

A snow sculpture of a Buddha sits in meditation outside a clear church window, framed by falling snow and winter trees, while warm candlelight glows inside the sanctuary.
~ Linda Wright

My father defined himself as an agnostic, which I found frustrating, because as a child, I preferred simple yes and no answers. It had to be one way or the other. 

Dad had memorized large sections of the bible and when the door bell would ring he would invite in the Jehovah Witness, or the Seventh Day Adventist, or the Mormon missionaries. He was eager to discuss what they believed and how they interpreted the scripture, especially certain sections that perplexed him. 

My six-year-old brain longed for simple answers, while my father seemed to enjoy holding more than one idea at a time. 

“Dad!” I insisted, “Do you believe in God?” 

He looked at me for a long moment and gently replied, “I don’t know.” 

Nevertheless, we celebrated Christmas. It was a tradition. 

Father made our greeting cards. He started in the summer each year, learning a different method of print making. Then he prepared the fabric, metal, or wood he used to print the cards. Lastly, he drew the design. In November he began printing the cards. 

Mother steamed figgy pudding for gifts. While the scent of cinnamon and cloves filled the kitchen, I made snowmen out of hard sauce to place on top when the pudding was reheated and served. The snowman would melt into a sweet puddle.

My parents explained that Santa Claus was not a person, but “the spirit of giving.” It amused me that I could tell my eight-year-old friends I still believed in Santa when they felt their faith had been betrayed.

Outside the sanctuary of the church of my childhood, the minister built an enormous Buddha out of snow. He positioned it just outside the window looking into the sanctuary. The Buddha’s eyes were closed, and I wondered what he thought of us singing Christmas carols.

Now, I see Winter Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and “  for the rest of us” as a mix of secular and sacred holidays. This season carries both joy and weight. It is a time of celebration, but also of unrealistic expectations, stress, anxiety, and sorrow.

The first time I experienced grief was on December 24, 1964 when we learned my great-uncle Eustace had died. I still remember how sad I felt that Christmas Eve. Just the previous summer, he had shown me how to extend my fishing pole, holding the little fish dangling on the line close to the camera.

“Everyone will think you caught a big fish when they see this photo,” he winked.

During this time of year, sights, songs, or even quiet moments often bring me to tears. Each year, my arthritis and fatigue constrain me to do less and less to decorate the house with winter cheer. When I realize that I once had abilities that are now gone, I can slip into remorse. 

Even my friend’s challenges weigh on me. My neighbor died last June and while alive, he insisted that his family hold a Christmas party every year, although his widow strained to make all the preparations. This year she is hosting the party alone and I wonder how her heart is feeling as she does. 

A few weeks ago, the granddaughter of another neighbor died. She told me she is too distraught to celebrate this year. When she admits she isn’t even sure how her granddaughter died, because her son does not want to talk about it, I listen.

Grief cannot be denied. And when you live in a retirement community, it is a regular visitor. However loss enters our lives, it deserves to be acknowledged and affirmed.

Even though I once demanded my father take a stand, these days I believe life does not fit neatly into little boxes. It is not one way or another. Faith and doubt, joy and sorrow, hope and fear are fluid, shifting as we age.

So although I wish people well this time of year, I am mindful of the complicated emotions the season carries. For me, caring for one another matters more than our differences.

Sometimes it’s better to be kind than to be right. We do not need an intelligent mind that speaks, but a patient heart that listens.

 Gautama Buddha

Pride

A diverse group of smiling people, including a woman in a wheelchair, a guide dog, and others, pose together in front of a colorful striped background.
~ Linda Wright

July is Disability Pride Month and I  have been thinking a lot about a poem Laura Hershey wrote in 1971 entitled “You Get Proud By Practicing.” It is one of my favorite poems. 

I’ve had more than seventy-five years to practice being proud. When I was a child I was the only one in my age group who had to go to the doctor for treatment if I fell down and scraped a knee. I was the only one who had to go to the emergency room for a nose bleed. By the time I was a teen, I didn’t know anyone else who had to see an orthopedic surgeon. Many adults and even other children focused on what I couldn’t do rather than what I could.

I wasn’t proud yet, but I also wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed by my disability. The over culture, or the attitude of the dominant culture, is one of ableism. It is learned at a young age. I knew that most people saw me as less than “normal.” The truth is that more than one in four adults in the United States have a disability. That sounds pretty normal to me.

When I finally met another teen in the early 1960’s who had a bleeding disorder, I believed I was lucky to be a girl. My new friend was a boy with hemophilia. In order for his father to be proud of him he had to play hockey. The battering his body took trying to make his father proud of him left joint injuries that could not heal. He needed a total knee replacement before he turned fifteen. 

It took years of practice before I could feel pride in my abilities. My disabilities have increased with age but I am no longer the only one in my age group who has a disability. I don’t feel like the odd one out anymore, but I don’t see many of my peers feeling proud. In fact many have internalized ableism, trying to deny their disabilities or cover them up in order to feel good about who they are.

They haven’t learned as Laura Hershey says:

 “You do not need
to be able to walk, or see, or hear,
or use big, complicated words,
or do any of the things that you just can’t do
to be proud.”

Lenten Sacrifice

Cluster of small green buds surrounded by pointed, serrated leaves on a stem, against a blurred natural background.
~ Linda Wright

Although it has not been a part of my religious practice in the past, this year I have things I want to give up during Lent. It will not be the cookies I have with my afternoon tea or the occasional meal I have that is not strictly plant based. But there are things that are both unhealthy and distracting that I am giving up during this season of sacrifice, in order to attain clarity. 

Lately my thoughts have been scattered. Like the tree branches blown over the ground with the recent wind and rain, I feel tossed betwixt and between. I spend more time  than I want reading and responding to email and social media. The books I want to read pile up and up. My relationships with friends and family go untended. 

This season is one of acknowledging death, and rebirth. As I am about to complete my 76th year of life I understand that time is precious. It is impossible to escape my mortality. I have fewer years of life before me than behind me. Dust will return to dust. My generation will be replaced by others.

Recently social media has capitalized on the human tendency to flutter from one thing to another. It keeps me scrolling way past the time I had planned to find some bit of information. Worse yet is that in order to hold my attention, much of what I stumble upon is designed to make me angry.

Years ago when I was leading workshops, I learned that distractions take precedence. It’s instinctual, probably a survival technique ingrained from our ancestors. If it is a single distraction, as when a comedian is interrupted by a heckler, the best advice is not to ignore it. 

That doesn’t work when the distractions come at an alarming number and frequency. Lately the distractions feel like the devil at work. Even though I don’t believe in Satan, I recognize that there are evil forces purposefully stirring things up, making me doubt my faith. I feel the need to return to a sacred practice.

Today the “news” seems to be less about what happened and more about what the consequences could be. I am feeling powerless, trying to figure out where to begin. It is hard to avoid the comparison with being lost in a wilderness and needing a time of solitude and reflection, in order to muster the spiritual energy to resist the evil forces.

During Lent, I am giving up the temptations of mindless busyness that have become addictive for me. Only then will I be able to pay attention to the things that mattered the most, rather than the myriad details that have been cluttering my thoughts. Perhaps it will reinvigorate me, giving me renewed energy to start where I am, use what I have, and do what I can.

Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.
― Arthur Ashe

Celebrating Old Friendships

~ Linda Wright

The old Girl Scout song we used to sing went,

Make new friends,
but keep the old.
One is silver,
the other is gold.

This month two old friends are celebrating their birthdays. It’s a big one that ends in a zero. We are older now than we ever expected to be. Years ago I drifted away from letter writing. Now I email greeting cards, or send a text message. For these old friends I want more. I want a conversation. I want to hear their voices again. We now live far apart and we haven’t seen each other in a very long time. Before I even dial the number I know part of the conversation will be about how our calendars are full of medical appointments and, how we can no longer do some of the things we used to do. It will also be about music, travel, ways we are caring for other friends or family and, the things that matter now that we are old.

Day 8 (of 31 days of free writing)

Where Did I Go Wrong?

Statue of person holding drooping head with one hand
~ Linda Wright

Tuesday morning I telephoned the doctor. I’d stayed awake most of the night wondering what I could have done that would cause my right shoulder to hurt. I certainly did not want to get an infusion of clotting factor, we had been enjoying a month at the beach and we had been there less than a week. I wasn’t actually sure I had a bleed in my shoulder joint. “It might just be arthritic pain from an old injury,” I said to the answering machine and asked the doctor to decide if I should get an infusion. The recorded message promised that a nurse would get back to me soon.

It had been years since pain in this shoulder had kept me awake. The first time I had an x-ray that showed previous injuries, joint damage, but not active bleeding. I went to a physical therapist and the pain eventually subsided although it came back whenever I didn’t keep the exercises up. I had no memory of a bleed in that shoulder, but the x-ray was proof.

The older I get the more previous injuries become painful. I feel ashamed that I can’t tell the difference each time a doctor says, “Why didn’t you call me sooner?” The implication is that I was in denial. That is probably at least partly true. However, I have also had false alarms and then the doctor’s scornful reproach implies hypochondria.

The next time I had pain in that shoulder was when we moved to Florida six years ago. That time I tried to return to the exercises but the pain got worse by the day. I had been packing and hefting books for our move to Florida. Motivated to meet the deadline for packing I suppressed my doubts until the pain became so intense I had no choice but to go to the Emergency Room and get infused. The doctor told me to rest the shoulder and wrote a prescription for a narcotic pain medication. Resting was not an option. The movers were coming in a day or two and we would be loading the car and driving south to Florida from Massachusetts whether my arm had healed or not.

We arrived in Tallahassee a few days before the moving van and settled the cat in our new house before the three of us checked into a motel. The next few days we spent shopping for essentials and delivering them to the house. We made frequent trips to the house to feed and reassure the cat. My arms loaded with supplies I missed a step and landed on the paved walkway to our new front door. Not only did I smash my glasses, bruising my face, I hit my right knee and landed on my shoulder, the same shoulder that had been injured packing books. That time it took several re-infusions of fibrinogen to subside and the doctor instructed me not to lift anything over five pounds.

So after calling the doctor’s office on Tuesday morning I waited, and waited, and waited. No return call as promised. Wednesday morning I called again and this time I was more sure of myself. The pain was worse. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” apologized the nurse. “I’ll schedule the infusion for this afternoon, can you get here by 2 pm?”

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, “Where have I gone wrong?” Then a voice says to me, “This is going to take more than one night.”

Cartoon boy extending both arms appears to be wailing

—Charles M. Schulz