Advanced Decrepitude
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However, despite these common depictions of the elderly as individuals who are serenely content, I can personally attest that this is absolutely not the case. In brief, our lives at eighty and beyond, in terms of quantity remaining, can be summed up of course as "not much." But what about quality? I have to tell you the answer is the same: "not much."
Why is this so? It is because if we live beyond eighty (and even earlier), we typically suffer from such an assortment of maladies that the capacity to enjoy life is diminished. We require the use of a wheelchair or walker or at least a cane to move around, and chronic pain is etched on many faces or is evident in our physical demeanor.
But what I have found most disconcerting is an absence of irreverent humor and appreciation of the absurd. Dinnertime conversation tends to be repetitious, without much reference to the outside world. It's almost as if we elderly have already left it and no longer find it of interest despite the breakthroughs and amazing discoveries in science, technology, and the cosmos. I hope I can avoid this loss of curiosity in what is going on "out there and, at the same time, retain my enjoyment in silly stuff.
The stories that follow illustrate my attempts over the years to do this, but you must be the judge of my successes and failures.
Marguerite Bladen
I have just finished reading "I See You Made an Effort" by Annabelle Gurwitch, which is about facing the trauma of turning fifty. This is a pretty funny book despite its rueful tinge of self-mockery, but it has just hit me! I myself have turned eighty, and not only that, I am halfway to turning ninety—and this is not funny at all! First I should let you know that eighteen months ago, at the age of eighty-three, I made the decision to enter into a facility of the kind known as a "Continuing Care Retirement Community" because I was finding increasing difficulty in managing housekeeping, grocery shopping, preparing meals, etc., and most dire, my mobility was diminishing at an alarming rate. It was not that I could not perform those activities but rather that they were requiring an increasing effort, obviously not likely to become easier.
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Advanced Decrepitude - Marguerite Bladen
Copyright © 2015 by Marguerite Bladen.
ISBN: Softcover 978-1-5035-3898-6
eBook 978-1-5035-3897-9
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
Rev. date: 02/27/2015
Xlibris
1-888-795-4274
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702396
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Thank-You Chubby Checker
Surgical Sugarcoat
Hitting Bottom
Just Checking
Southwest
Dampened Enthusiasm
A Real Housewife
Don’t Ask!
Game-Ready
Skeletal Remains
You Never Know
Bob’s Gone
Love and th
anks
to my family
who have been
such good sports
in accepting the choices
I have made
throughout their lives.
I am proud of you.
Foreword
Although my intention
in writing these stories
is to alert my family as to
what is yet to come,
I would be remiss
if I did not point out
that at any age
laughter is the best medicine.
I myself invented this phrase
(but perhaps you were not aware of that.)
Acknowledgment
Thanks to Dax Maddocks from Regent’s Point
for metaphorically holding my hand in
submitting my manuscript.
DAX%20PHOTO.jpgIntroduction
I have just finished reading I See You Made an Effort
by Annabelle Gurwitch which is about facing the trauma of turning fifty. This is a pretty funny book despite its rueful tinge of self mockery, but