I had an enjoyable yet sobering holiday with my family. I think visits with family, more than any other activities or events, are sure to remind us of the circle of life. There is the basic fact of aging and growing old. We all return to our families older (wiser, we hope) and, driven by cliches,we remark on the changes that are an inevitable part of life. Aren’t you getting big? You are so tall now. I won’t go into the less polite or offensive remarks that often slip. You may have uttered one or fallen victim to one. None of us need be reminded. But reuniting with my family always reminds me that I am older.
If we start at the top of the aging cycle, there are the matriarchs and patriarchs of the family: grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, godparents. On my wife’s side of the family, 2009 saw the passing of one more uncle and the head count for that generation now stands at 1: my wife’s mother. At 97, she is the last remaining parent to my wife and her brother; the last aunt to her cousins on her father’s side.
Our holiday began with a big surprise: a cousin my wife had trekked around Europe with as a teenager called and announced she wanted to visit her favorite cousin and her only remaining aunt. So the first day of vacation began in the Houston airport where my wife’s cousin from West Virginia arranged for her flight to arrive around the same time as ours from Costa Rica so we could ride to the family homestead together.
The visit was one of laughter and remembrance from start to finish. The laughter began as I frantically searched the airport for cousin Patti who was nowhere to be found. I had even more fun with the bewildered information assistant at the airport trying to locate her flight. The number I had did not match anything on her itinerary. It is one thing for me to struggle with my communications in Costa Rica, butchering Spanish and trying to understand and be understood, but here we were, with no accurate fly number to go by, trying to figure out if we misheard Dulles for Dallas, if we had some misinformation, but all the time feeling deep down that we had carefully recorded the flights, times, and loacations.
Before I tell you the mistake, let me profile our cousin. She is not a backwoods country girl from West Virginia. She actually grew up in suburban Maryland/DC, grew up in a cultured and sophisticated family, attended a small college where she lettered in three sports, had a career as a high school biology teacher, and at the age of 40 decided to go to medical school. Dr. Patti now practices in a small town in West Virginia. However, unlike her background would predict, she has decided to live in the modern world without a cell phone, without a computer, and without many of the things most of us take for granted. Some may describe her as eccentric, but to us she is cousin Patti–who is nowhere to be found in the Houston airport and impossible to locate because of her eccentricities.
I return from yet another terminal train ride around the airport and discover my wife and cousin Patti chatting happily at the baggage claim, waiting for me to return. It turns out that our eccentric cousin had no idea there were two airports in Houston. Because she doesn’t have a computer to book her own flights, she asked a friend at the public library to make her reservations for her. Her friend booked her into the city airport about 25 miles away. When she discovered her error she took a cab to the correct airport and found us. In some families, that incident alone would be enough to change some old habits, but not in our family. Instead, cousin Patti will muddle along without her cell phone and computer, jogging by day, curing the sick by night (and day).
And what kind of presents did cousin Patti bring on this important visit? A shoebox, a scrapbook of grammatical mistakes, and mementoes from childhood. The two cousins sat together from morning until night giggling over the river rafting trip on the Colorado, and their backpacking through Europe. We became her captive audience as she pulled out old clippings about her dad; shared photos of her mom. She laughed hysterically at the grammatical errors she had collected for the sole purpose of sharing with her “literate, PhD in English cousin.” Patti and aunt Juanita swapped stories, most coming from the 97 year old matriarch who delighted her niece with stories and recollections of Patti’s mother and father. As the weather back east turned snowy and grim, Patti boarded the plane, determined to return and not miss her shift at the clinic, even though we knew, on the way to the airport, that at least one of the DC airports was closed. We found out through Facebook and emails from others that cousin Patti indeed got back, and of course did not miss a shift.
It was over so quickly I hardly knew what to think.
Meanwhile, this trip home confirmed yet another change: this last remaining member of the older generation was now legally blind. Numerous visits from a parade of medical folks interviewed her to determine whether she was eligible for any home assistance from medicaire. This army widow who saw her husband through three wars, cannot distinguish between the many pills she must take each day. She obviously cannot drive or leave the house alone. She walks through the house with a walker, having carefully mapped out trails among the furniture and the collected detrius of a lifetime of traveling and living around the world. She and her husband retired 38 years ago, bought a house, paid it off, and now she is all that remains in the family, the last one standing in the tiny town of Huntsville, Texas. She remembers the first great influenza epidemic, so Swine Flu (or H1N1) is nothing to laugh about as far as she is concerned. In fact, she is the opposite of what you think when you put the words, “remember” and “old person” together. It seems her memory has increased and sharpened as her vision has deteriorated and failed.
At the other end of the cycle is the miracle and joy of birth. Certainly the birth of a child is a happy and exciting moment, but it too has its implications in reminding one about growing old. Despite the relatively small size of our family, the logistics of getting people together for a holiday is always amusing. My in laws and nephew drove three hours to be with us for Christmas eve; our niece flew in for three days from Los Angeles to make the occasion, but our son and daughter-in-law would not be in until Christmas day. After our Christmas eve celebration we drove three hours back to greet them at the train station and to put my niece on a plane back to LA. They arrived, bearing great tidings of joy: they were pregnant. It was a secret that could no longer be kept as my son had to explain that his wife had spent the entire 28 hour train ride throwing up. She also had developed strep, so as I spent Boxing day in the waiting room of the ER, I contemplated how my little boy was now going to be a father in his own right, and his father was now going to be a grandfather. Was I supposed to do something different? I decided I would just do what I always do: be there for them.
Although this seems to be a self-indulgent, rambling piece about getting old, it is really just self-indulgent and rambling. I never really give much thought to aging. I don’t color my hair, I don’t put much stock in “big” or milestone birthdays. I don’t get offended when no one asks for my ID at a bar, and I’m not flattered when they do. When my mother-in-law is questioned about her longevity she always gives the same answer: no, she doesn’t have a secret; she doesn’t know what explains her long, good health. She suspects deep down she has been placed on this earth for a purpose, and she can only figure that God has kept her alive this long to fulfill that purpose, whatever it is. So she keeps as busy as she can, given her limited mobility and eyesight. She calls her “elderly” friends every day (often at least 10 or more years younger than she is) to buoy their spirits, check on their status, and figure out if she is needed in any way. She has someone read her the obituaries every day, and someone has to read her email in case anyone is sick and needs to be added to her prayer list. She follows the stock market and the weather to make sure her money is holding out and in case she needs to pray for help in case there is a storm in Costa Rica or Chicago or Los Angeles…Although she lives alone and cannot leave the house, she is always ready to help. If all she can do is pray, well, there is no one I would count on more to have a direct line to the Almighty than my mother-in-law.
Life is filled with excitement and adventure such as moving to Costa Rica, experiencing a new culture, making new friends. Life has its ups, its downs, its victories and defeats. It also has its routines, its ordinariness, and its mundane obligations. When we talk about making the most of life I think it has something to do with figuring out how to embrace the mundane and routine; to be prepared; to be available; to be aware.
In many ways, my mother-in-law and I could not be more different, and yet I share her philosophy of life. I suspect I am here for some purpose, though I don’t exactly know what it is. Maybe it’s to look for lost cousins in the airport. Maybe it’s to make supper for someone who spends most of her time alone and relishes every minute of company. Or maybe it is to wait in emergency rooms or train stations, just to be there. I try not to hurt other people, and I help as many as I can. I’m not concerned about figuring out why I am here, I just know that I am and as long as I keep busy and let people know I am willing to help, things will be OK.