Pat Bertram's Blog, page 105

Informal Poll

I just came across an interesting comment in a book. Supposedly, if people are in a restaurant with somebody, they look at their food more than the other person. If they are alone, they watch people more than their food.

It seems right, and I remember doing both things, but I’m curious. Is this what you do? Is this what people around you do?

Of course, the question doesn’t take into consideration the prevalence of phones at the table. So, do phones affect the original premise? Or does it still hold true?[image error]

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Young Elderly and Elderly Elderly

[image error]My post on elderliness the other day might have seemed fatuous, because who of us really cares what age “elderly” is? We don’t need to define our time of life, no matter what it is. At any age, we simply take care of ourselves as best as we can, and as we get older, we make adjustments for ailments, infirmities and joints that don’t work as well as they once did.

And yet, what about others who define “elderly” for us? That will affect us for sure.

For example, one candidate who is trying to win the democratic nomination says that certain medical treatments should be withheld from the “elderly.”

To be honest, people should not be getting quadruple bypass surgeries in their nineties (as my father did) or getting chemo in their late-eighties (as my mother didn’t) but these should be a determination by the patient and the doctor rather than a matter of legislation. (Some insurance companies do make this determination, but it is generally a case by case decision and is not yet mandated by law.)

Many younger folk think this agenda is a good idea. Why should the elderly use up valuable resources if it’s not going to make their lives appreciably better? I, for one, would not opt for such treatments, but then, I only go to the doctor when I scalp myself or break a bone. But it is — and should continue to be — my choice to go or not to go, to accept treatment or to walk away.

A major issue with the candidate’s idea (besides the obvious one of government needing to stay away from such matters) is the term “elderly.” If by elderly, they mean someone who is so frail the treatment would probably kill them, then any reputable doctor would urge the person away from treatment anyway. If by elderly, they mean a person who is strong, healthy, and still heals fast, but has lived many decades, then treatment should definitely be an option. But if by elderly, they mean a person over 65, as is the current political definition of elderly, then such legislation would be nothing short of euthanasia. But it sure would be a political and fiscal coup, eradicating any need for Medicare!

I am not a big believer in government control (not a little believer, either), and usually stay away from politics of any sort, but this particular agenda showed me that “elderly” is not simply a pejorative term or an ageist term, but one of great significance.

And it shows me that I’m right: in the matter of health, there is a big difference between a younger elderly person and an elderly elderly person.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Intrusion

For someone who lives such a simple life, I still manage to find excitement. Or rather, excitement manages to find me.

This particular adventure started with the snowstorm last night.

I went out in the dark to brush off the four-inch accumulation from my ramp. The snow doesn’t melt as quickly from the wooden ramp as it does from the sidewalks, and I wanted to make sure no ice formed under the additional two inches that would pile up in the next few hours. It was a lovely night: luminous and oh, so quiet. I stood there, broom in hand, and enjoyed the experience of being inside my own personal snow globe.

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This morning, when I went out to finish sweeping the ramp, I discovered that someone (my next door neighbor, I learned later) had shoveled the sidewalk in front of my house. Such a nice thing to have done!

By the time I finished sweeping the ramp and brushing the snow off my covered car, the clouds had cleared away and the sun was shining warmly. So I went inside, opened the curtains to the back yard to get the benefit of the warmth, and . . .

What the heck?

Footsteps led from the back gate, across the newly dug garage foundation, around the carport almost to the house, then back around and into the carport, and finally out the gate. I told myself I must be misinterpreting what I was seeing. This neighborhood is crawling with feral cats, and I thought that perhaps they had sunk into the snow as they made their rounds.

But no. When I went out to look, I could see that the tracks had been made by shoes, so a person had definitely come in the yard, though it didn’t look as if anything had been taken. (The snow that had blown onto the things stored under the carport had been undisturbed.)

I checked with the contractor to make sure neither he nor one of his workers had come for a ladder or some such they had left here, but he said they hadn’t stopped by and he was sure the building inspector hadn’t either since the inspector wouldn’t have needed to enter the yard. The contractor suggested I call the sheriff, but I hesitated, since nothing had been taken.

Instead, I checked with my next door neighbors who have a camera pointed at the alley to see if they could see anything, and there it was — a video of a hooded fellow very deliberately striding up to my gate, crossing the foundation for the garage, leaving camera range, then a minute or so later, retracing his steps. My neighbor husband, being a tracker, followed the footsteps into a well-trafficked street a couple of blocks away where they disappeared.

My neighbor wife came over to stay with me and said I really should call the sheriff to report an intrusion, so I gave in and did. (Is this a small-town thing? In bigger cities, we don’t generally report something so minor, mostly because we know the cops are too busy to care.) While we waited for someone from the sheriff’s department to come, we sipped flower tea and talked about the theft/homeless/street people problem, which is fairly new in this area. There is a homeless coalition housed nearby, and they bus in people from the big cities, many of whom wash out of the program and end up on the streets here. It’s a good thing for those who stay to finish the program, but overall, it’s not a very good thing for the town.

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The sergeant from the sheriff’s department came after about an hour, though he did say (when I asked) that if it had been an emergency, he would have been here immediately. Apparently, a couple of ambulance calls took precedence over my non-emergency. He took my name and birthdate, and I offered him a cup of tea. (I have to laugh at myself in light of my post yesterday about channeling my inner elder since offering tea seems such an . . . ahem, old lady . . . thing to do.)

The sergeant said that the guy in the video didn’t look like any of their “frequent flyers.” We told him we thought it might have been our troublemaking neighbor, but that the tracks hadn’t led to his house. The deputy said that the guy doesn’t live there any more, and if we see him to call because there is a warrant for his arrest — fraud and embezzlement. (Apparently, he is a full-service thug — drug dealer, thief, breaker of the peace, and now defrauder and embezzler.) Before he left, the sergeant said that he would make sure the alley behind my house is patrolled.

By the time I had a chance to take a photo after everything quieted down, most of the 6” of snow had melted, but the tracks were still visible. By sundown tonight, the snow will be gone and all but the memory of the weird event will have disappeared. Well, the memory and the locks I immediately went out to buy to secure the gates.

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It really had surprised me that a potential thief would be brazen enough to come through the gate even at that time of night (2:35 a.m. according to the video). A lot of things go missing in this neighborhood, but generally, things are not taken from fenced yards. I have a hunch the absence of my car from under the carport (it’s temporarily parked out front since I can’t get around the garage foundation to park it under the carport) made him think the house was empty.

Adding to the weirdness, when I went to get the locks, it turned out they were kept behind the counter as if they were a controlled substance. Apparently, locks are one of that store’s most stolen items, second only to duct tape.

Weirdest of all, none of this scared me. It probably should, but I had the fence put up, am now using my new locks, and once the garage is up and everything stored out of sight, I will have done everything I can to protect myself.

I might be heading toward elderliness (young elderliness, that is), but I don’t intend to live in fear.

And anyway, at least in the writing, it seems that all this excitement wasn’t so exciting after all.

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Channeling My Inner Elder

[image error]“Elderly,” with its connotations of frailty and dependence and uselessness, has become a pejorative term, and I can certainly understand that. In fact, the other day when someone mentioned that I was elderly, I was miffed. Elderly? Me? No way.

But that comment led me to a search on what “elderly” is. And when it is.

According to the Social Security administration, 65 is considered elderly, though apparently, that number is being upgraded to 67 since 67 is the new retirement age. According to the AMA, 65 is considered elderly. (As in, “The elderly, i.e. those over 65, are most susceptible to the flu.”) The US Census Bureau considers middle age to be 45 to 65, with the assumption that over 65 is elderly, but one does not go immediately from being middle aged to being elderly, from usefulness to uselessness, from vigor to enfeeblement, but apparently there is no word in the official lexicon — or any lexicon — for this younger older demographic.

Other than these few mentions of what age is “elderly,” the consensus seems to be you are only as old as you feel, though that doesn’t tell me anything. “Feeling” is not the same as “being.” Humans go through a general growth arc, developing and then declining, and there does come a time that, despite what you feel, your body simply doesn’t work as well as it once did. The process is slow, so to a great extent we don’t know we are deteriorating until something happens to smack us in the face and wake us up.

The elderly, even the younger elderly, are at risk for various ailments and accidents, don’t heal as quickly, don’t process thoughts as quickly, don’t focus as quickly as when they were young. I realize this sort of determination is also subjective, but there is a cut off point for each of us when the arrows all point downward. (I’m not talking about joy of living or feeling useful and meaningful and even youthful; I’m just talking about physical things, body processes,)

A few years ago, a friend posted a blog for her birthday. She said, ‘It’s a big one. The one after “middle age” and the beginning of “elderly.” It’s difficult to fathom I’m there already. I don’t feel elderly. I’m told I don’t look elderly. However, the calendar says I am.’

I haven’t reached that “big one” yet, but I’ve often thought of her comment, especially considering the falls I recently experienced. Each fall on its own was simply an accident that could have happened to a younger person, but that they happened to me in such a short period of time makes me wonder if there was something else at work here. Maybe a slower reaction time? Maybe an extra fraction of a second before I realized what was happening? I don’t think so, but I don’t know, so I’ve been channeling my inner elder and staying inside when the streets are snowy or even wet. It’s almost comforting, in a way, to pamper this inner elder and not try to force myself to do something I’m not inclined to do anyway. (I prefer to stay inside since I’m not much for cold weather anymore. Or hot weather, either, for that matter.)

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to admit we’re elderly (though for now I still only admit to “getting older”). After all, when you eliminate the unpleasant connotations with which we’ve saddled the word, elderly merely means “olderly,” (which actually would be a cool word if there was such a thing). And anyway, according to the dictionary, an elder is an older person, especially one with a respected position in society. In this context, elderly has a connotation of wisdom rather than worthlessness.

I can live with that.

When I become elderly, that is.

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Snowdrop in the Snow

[image error]I’m certainly no snowdrop, remaining steadfast and sprightly in the snow. Instead, I brew a cup of tea and huddle over the warmth of my computer and ignore the snow. Except, of course, a moment now and again to look out the window and enjoy the whiteness of the day.

Well, that’s not exactly true. I did sweep the snow off the ramp leading to the house. I’m not expecting either a package or a visitor, but on the off chance someone would need to come to the door, I wouldn’t want the fates of irony to get into the act. (As much as I appreciate irony, having someone slipping on the wheelchair ramp and ending up in a wheelchair is one example I can live without.)

Then, even though I have a car cover, the snow still needed to be brushed off. It’s been a long time since I had to do that — the last time was a year and a half ago when I got caught in a snowstorm on a road trip. And the last time before that was . . . I don’t know. Maybe a decade or so ago. Even though I haven’t had a workable garage since I moved back to snow country, I do have a carport, but the foundation for the new garage blocks off access. Hence, snow removal.

And then, of course, I had to take a photo of that resolute little bloom in the snow.

This is Tuesday, and as usual, almost all my activities for the week were scheduled for today but, apparently, I am taking a snow day. There can be no work on the garage, a stint of volunteer work at the library was cancelled, I lost track of time and missed the third activity, and I simply don’t feel like going out into the snow and dark for a meeting tonight.

So here I am, a cup of tea at my elbow, the computer shining brightly in front of me, contemplating how not like a snowdrop I am.

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Cat Photos

I’ve read that people online love to look at cat photos, so here are my cat photos.

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See? Cat?

Well, I thought it was funny!

And anyway, the Cat was mine for only a couple of hours, and I never even got to drive the excavator! The construction workers did a lot in that short a time — dug the foundation for the garage, and moved the lilacs that were going to be in the way.

Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that the lilacs will survive, though I’m sure at least some will. With the Cat, they were able to dig down below the root and take up the whole ball of earth.

Things might be at a standstill again. We seem to be in a weird weather pattern — spring every weekend, fall on Monday and Friday, and winter midweek. Although it’s nice to have lovely weather on the weekends, it makes it hard to find a long enough dry time on work days to pour the foundation and allow it to cure. But it’s fun to watch the property change when they do get a chance to work.

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

 

Job Shadowing

A guidance counselor at the local grade school contacted a woman I know and asked her to speak to one of the students about being a writer. This woman’s expertise is in journalism, which is one thing the boy is interested in, but the counselor also wanted an author to talk to him, so my acquaintance passed the request along to me. (The subject line of the emails that were copied to me is “job shadowing,” hence the title of this blog.)

I’ve been ignoring the whole situation because I’m truly hesitant about encouraging anyone to be a writer. I’m of the same mind as Dorothy Parker; “If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

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People who want to write will write despite any encouragement or lack thereof, so I certainly wouldn’t blight the kid’s interest in writing by not talking to him, but apparently he isn’t interested in the craft of writing so much as writing as a job, and I can’t tell him anything about the job aspect. (Except to tell him that to make money as a writer, he needs to find another job, such as plumber or electrician.)

I can tell people how to write better, I can tell them how to develop a story, I can tell them any number of things about the craft of writing, but I have no idea how to make a living at being a writer. Besides, I tend to think any writing advice I have would go over the head of even the smartest kid, since so much of what I know is obviously over the heads of the most well-known and wealthiest writers today because so few of them practice what I would preach. Being a good writer and being a successful author have little correlation to one another. Rather than expertise, it is luck and phenomenal marketing skills that determines a successful writer.

Making the situation worse, nowadays success seems to be about sliding in on the coattails of another writer. It used to be that there was a turnover in bestselling authors as they died or retired, but the trend now is to continue the name ad infinitum. And ad nauseum.

I did give a speech to students not that long ago about the importance of writing, but that’s different from talking one-on-one.

Writers, if you were presented with this dilemma, what would you do?

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Snowdrop!

At least, I think it’s a snowdrop. When I planted bulbs in the fall, I took a scattershot approach, so they are all mixed up without any indication of what is planted where.

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The snowdrop was supposed to be the first to bloom, and considering that this little gem (no bigger than my thumbnail) is not just the first but the only flower so far, I figure it has to be a snowdrop. And if not, well, a snowy drop by any other name is still a lovely little blossom.

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I realize it’s not much, this bloom, but every flower garden, no matter how lush, had to start with a single flower, and this is mine — the first step to what I hope will be a pretty yard.

At the moment, of course, the yard is not at all pretty. The brown grass is gouged with troughs where the garage and the carport used to be. The carport was moved close to the house and is filled with a lot of the stuff that should be (and will be) in the garage when it is built, but a few cold, snowy days put garage on hold. There are supposed to be a couple of more cold, snowy days next week, but then after that . . . well, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

I realize everything is a slow process, whether growing a single bloom, planting a garden, landscaping a yard, or building a garage, and it’s still early days since I haven’t been here quite a year.

In fact, exactly three weeks from today will be my first anniversary as a homeowner.

So far, so good!

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Preparing for the Death of a Spouse

When people ask me how they can prepare for the death of their sick spouse, I can only shrug helplessly because there is no way to prepare emotionally for all the painful and chaotic feelings that grief will throw at you.

I thought I was prepared for Jeff’s death, so after he died, I truly was stunned by the depth and breadth of my feelings. During the last year of his life, and especially the last six months, he’d begun withdrawing from the world and from me. This withdrawal, this lessening of a need to be with others is a natural part of dying, and my response to his withdrawal was just as natural — an increased determination to live. He might have been dying but I wasn’t, and I had to untangle our lives, find a way to survive his dying and his death. I thought I had successfully completed this task, but his death rocked me to the core of my being.

As I discovered, there is a world of difference between presence and absence, and an eternity of difference between dying and dead. Because of this difference, you simply cannot know, cannot prepare for how you will feel.

There is one thing, though, that you can do to prepare, and that is to make sure you are familiar with all the little chores that come with modern-day living.

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Even if we don’t have a traditional split in chores, such as the woman doing the cooking and cleaning, the man doing the outside chores, we do tend to gravitate to certain chores and over the years, they become habit. So still, in a time of — perhaps — more equality around the house, the person left behind is also left learning how to do things that are generally simple to learn. When you are grieving, however, when you are caught in the never-ending spiral of pain and stress, helplessness and hopelessness, befuddlement and utter bewilderment, learning such tasks becomes almost impossible.

One woman I know was frantic when it came time to take her car in for an emissions test. Because it was something her husband had always done, she had no idea what to do. Another woman had no idea how to balance her checkbook, had never even been to their bank. One man didn’t know how to make coffee or even how to cook simple meals. In another case, it was the woman who had done minor chores around the house, and the poor husband was ashamed to admit he didn’t even know how to change a lightbulb or tighten a doorknob.

Those of us who knew how to do these things found it almost impossible to garner the energy to do them, so I can only imagine how these people were nearly done-in when confronted with such tasks.

Preparing ahead of time is not as simple as it sounds. Sometimes it is the dying person who wants to teach the person being left behind how to do all these small things, and the soon-to-be survivor resents not just the lessons, but the very idea that their mate is leaving them.

Sometimes, the one dying is resentful. They already feel helpless and the survivor, by taking an interest in “their” chores, seems to be pushing them further into helplessness.

None of this is easy. We humans are odd creatures — so very fragile, and yet at the same time, so very tenacious. It’s hard to die. It’s hard to survive. And yet each of us manages to do what we need to do, prepared or not.

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Grocery Stores and Grief

[image error]Grocery stores seem such prosaic places, with isles full of treats and temptations, and music that is supposed to put shoppers in the glad mood of buying.

And yet, for those grieving the loss of a life mate, grocery stores can be a source of incredible pain. It took one woman from my grief group more than a year before she could return to the store where she and her husband always shopped. For another woman, the grocery store was a reminder of how carefully she had to shop for her diabetic husband, and it took her months before she could shop without weeping.

Whatever our situation, grocery stores are a part of our lives. When there is an upcoming celebration, even if only movie night at home or a game day on television, we go to the grocery store for treats. When we have company coming, we go to the grocery store to stock up on special ingredients. When holidays come around, we go to the grocery store for all the family favorites. When it’s hot, we go to the grocery store for meals that are simple to fix. When it’s cold, we go to the grocery store for hot chocolate and soup and other warming foods.

When it isn’t a special occasion? We still frequently go to the grocery store to stock up on food and other necessities. Often a couple shops together. Even if a person goes alone, their mate is there too, if only in spirit, as the shopper choose foods their mate likes or might like.

Although they seem an almost constant presence in our lives, grocery store shopping trips are so common and matter-of-fact that we never of think of them in any context but what to eat.

But when your mate dies, suddenly a grocery store becomes a minefield. You automatically start putting his or her favorite foods in the basket, only to dissolve into tears when you see what you have done and realize . . . again . . . that he or she is gone.

I’d become used to going to the grocery store by myself during Jeff’s final weeks, and I’d become used to fighting off tears. We’d always shopped together, so during those weeks, the clerks, of course, inquired about him, and all I could do was shake my head and try not to cry as I said he wasn’t doing well. And when he was gone, the tears were my only response. It took me many months before I could actually say, “Jeff died”. Or “Jeff is dead.” The words simply would not form.

After a couple of months, I went to a different state to take care of my father. The grocery stores there were different enough that they had no emotional connotations for me. Then the grocery store I most shopped at for my dad went out of business, and I had to go to stores further away for the products he liked. I ended up in a store that strongly reminded me the one where Jeff and I shopped, so I left in tears.

I had to go the that store occasionally, so I got used to it and didn’t think much of it until about three years after Jeff died when I decided to buy a particular salad dressing I used to like that was only sold at that store. After I picked up the salad dressing bottle, I looked for some other flavors in that same store brand, wondering if I should try something new, and I saw a dressing Jeff liked. I automatically reached to get it for him, and when I realized what I was doing, suddenly, right there, in the salad dressing aisle, I started to weep.

Grocery store melt-downs are common among the bereaved, and yet very little is said about it. But then, very little is said about any of the everyday horrors that beset those who’ve suffered a loss.

Which, of course, is why I write about such prosaic things as shopping at a grocery store.

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.