At Least They're Committed

Well, hmmm, he still works . . . and at night you can’t see the wooden post sticking out from behind his head. I don’t think so, anyway.

My mom is heartsick. Her sister is in the late stages of dementia, one of her friends requires routine shots into an eyeball she can no longer see out of, another has macular degeneration, yet another has Parkinson’s and she, herself, is extremely hard of hearing and mobility challenged.

I lay the beast out on the hardwood, second living-room floor, which is still void of furniture, grope around its back until I find the toggle and flip it. Facedown, it comes to life (of sorts) and howls, its scrawny arms twitching as if looking for something to grasp.

“Why does God do this to us?” Mom has asked more than once.

I had to be straight with her, “Because you’re all old.”

Fighting with the tripod, I finally get it spread-legged. After strapping it somewhat securely, I take the werewolf by the pole, haul all 6 feet of him out the door and prop him in his designated spot, right behind the small lilac bush we planted earlier this year.

“If you all died 10 years ago, you wouldn’t have needed a knee or hip replacement,” I reminded her. “Your sis would still remember who she was, your friend’s eye wouldn’t be causing her pain and, yeah actually, Verna would still have macular degeneration, just maybe not as bad.”

Standing back, I can’t help but sigh. He looks horrible. The shirt we got him to replace the one he came in is faded and his stuffing is falling out from underneath. Amadeus (I think that’s what I named him) is tied and taped together, his head held up by twine wrapped around the protruding post.

“You’re right,” my mom says. I think maybe she’s wondering not why old people have these ailments, rather why does it get this far? It’s good we can talk about those things.

The Week in January 2015 wrote an article on How the Elderly are Treated Across the World. China and France passed laws requiring children to visit and look after their parents. Mediterranean and Latin cultures embrace the elderly, and generations of families live together and care for each other.

In U.S. and U.K. cultures, it states: “Western cultures tend to be youth-centric, emphasizing attributes like individualism and independence. This relates back to the Protestant work ethic, which ties an individual’s value to his or her ability to work — something that diminishes in old age.”

Good thing I’m Catholic.

So, yep, we suck at taking care of our elderly in the U.S. But not ‘we’ as in my family. The three of us kids take good care of mum, especially my brother and his significant other. They’re truly saints when it comes to her.

We go way out of our way for D’s mom, too. He and I took a long Labor Day weekend just to ‘get away from it all including people’ at the ranch and ended up helping his mother with projects throughout.

I told my Halloween-lovin’ grandsons the werewolf was in pretty bad shape and I might need to throw him away. I expected their faces to drop. They do so love our animatronics! Instead, they merely shrugged.

Death is not an obsession of mine, even though it might read otherwise. I’m not afraid of being dead — I can’t wait to see my dad and grandpas, oh, and Guido — my concern is with getting dead. The slow deterioration, the faltering mobility, the hearing loss, the memory lapses, the incontinence (not something that runs in my family, thankfully).

Upon their arrival Friday, I knew the boys would be excited to see the start of our favorite season with a few of our many creepy critters adorning the front porch, and they were. Still, the first thing out of Dez’s mouth was, “I thought you were going to throw the werewolf away.”

“Eh,” I said. “That’s just not how we do things here.”