Mom

I have not written lately about my mother( seen here with one of my brothers in August '09 ), affectionately called "Gram" by friends and co-workers in the office... but she turned 86 in late April, and still works two hours a day or about 10 hours per week, filing charts and similar clerical duties, and can walk without a cane so long as it is not too far, nor uphill, and there is no time limit. I drive her shopping or anywhere else she needs to go, and help her around the house a little, as do Nancy and Beth. Mostly she still functions living alone and is able to dress and bathe and cook and feed herself. Every morning will find her sitting at the table reading the paper and eating her 1/2 banana and piece of toast and sipping orange juice and tea. Lunch is a handful of grapes and chips and whatever is leftover, while dinner is often a TV dinner mixed with vegetables and meat followed by a snack of one or two cookies and a piece or two of her cherished dark chocolate. Sometimes ice cream-coffee or chocolate flavor-finishes the day. That regimen and her cocktail of medicines seems to have led to her long life, in which she stays mentally challenged by doing nightly crossword puzzles.
Having observed her for four years now, there is no doubt that her deterioration has increased in the past six months, particularly in her forgetfulness and loss of hearing. When she sits in on group conversations she is no longer able to hear much of what is said, and much of the rest passes by too fast for her and her hearing aid to process. When we deliberately speak loudly and slowly she may not recall that we had said the same thing only yesterday. Still her sense of social etiquette has not diminished, for she always remembers to send get well cards to sick friends and was recently upset because she blurted out what she thought was an inappropriate comment during a bridge game. The rest of us think the other person probably deserved it, but such is her good heart that it bothered her anyway.
She feels well enough to enjoy life most days, limited as it is, and plans to stay alive until she doesn't feel well. That means not doing anything extraordinary medically but doing what it takes-such as laser eye surgery next month-to make living comfortable. Economically she pays all her bills with social security, medicare and related insurances, and has rarely used personal savings except for major expenses such as a new roof and furnace last year. Probably her generation is the last to enjoy the charity of taxpayers to such an extent, but what is one to say to the elderly who are simply holding on for dear life-as is all of Washington and the rest of America? We love her and to distress her with anything other than patience seems to only belittle ourselves.