Rita’s Mom has been here since Thanksgiving. She is 93 years old. I won’t write about her personality. That is best left unwritten.
What I do want to write about is getting old. Really old.
I consider anything over 90 to be really old.
Rita’s Mom is frail. She has this walker she is semi-attached to. It has four wheels, hand brakes and a basket she can carry her ‘stuff’ in. She wheels around the house leaving a trail of clutter behind her. When she wants to impress people, she uses her cane. She shuffles back and forth, going from one distraction to another with her back bent and head looking at her feet, which she can’t feel. She can’t hear, she has problems working her cell phone, she can’t open cat food cans without a device of some kind. She has hot feet, restless legs, hands that don’t work right, and is a danger behind the wheel of her car. She can’t drive long distance, so when she wants to go to Florida for the winter, she gets either Rita or her sister to disrupt their lives for a week or longer to drive her there.
Soon, she will need more care.
Rita’s sister is taking care of her 95 year old mother in law. She fell and now can’t pull her panties down to take a leak. Rita’s sister has to do that for her and wipe her for she can’t do that herself. She is basically dependent on somebody else to live.
These people have lived long enough. It is time for them to pass on.
I never want to live so long that I can’t take a leak without help or wipe my own butt. I hope when I get to that stage, I will be mental and physically capable to take a long walk to the woods and never return.
We should not live so long that we have to ask others to wipe our butts.