Dependents: Do the Math

In my line of work I take care of a lot of elderly people.  Almost all of the people I see in their 60’s are a healthy active bunch.  60 is the new 50 they say. A great many of the people I see in their seventies are also quite healthy and active. Some of the people I see in their 80’s are healthy and active as are a few of those I see in their 90’s. Their counterparts in those groups are not doing so well.

Last week I was asked to see a woman in her mid-80’s with hip pain.  She is one of those who suffers with early dementia, who doesn’t walk much, and who cannot live independently even though she remains in her own home. I walked in her room and discovered her son there visiting who turned out to be a man I know.  He is about ten years older than me, a professional who lives pretty well.  We visited and he told me of his mother’s failing health and her ever-increasing needs.  Forgive me, but I had to think, “thank God my parents are gone.” My dad was 48 when I was born, my mother 47.  They were both gone by the time I was 33.

This evening, shortly after dinner, as my 4 year old son was jumping up and down on my belly I was given cause to consider the wisdom of having a 4 year old at my age.  I try to stretch and work on my core strength at least 5 days a week but, even so, I am inclined to think my body at 34 was far better equipped to accommodate the vigor of a 4 year old climbing on my belly just moments after dinner.  Every time he asks me to race him, or crawl, or push, or jump, or to climb into a freezing cold pool with him it’s the same:  I hope I survive this journey.

Be that as it may, there is never a day that goes by when I don’t feel like a lucky man to have this little boy.  His energy and joy and humor and curiosity are boundless and bring the same to my life.  He makes me happy far more often than I feel sore; he makes me feel renewed far more often than fatigued; makes me laugh far more often than he causes frustration.  And better still, I can hope that by the time I’m 70 he’ll be out of the house, living an independent life (even if he is still on the Dad Scholarship Plan), will not need me to take him to doctors appointments, will not be in diapers,  and perhaps, will even be dating a hot young babe he can bring home to meet dear ol’ dad.  Yes, I’ll definitely take my 4 year old at 54.  Good luck to the rest of ya!

Portland Clogs

It’s sometimes amazing, and surprising, and disappointing, and gratifying, how one’s attitudes change with time.  We have had rain here over the past 4 days.  The kind of rain that brings the ordinarily hyperactive squirrel industry to a crawl, the soggy little bastards keeping to their trees and nests.  The birds, too, seem to have taken the day off in spite of the streets and sidewalks being littered with displaced worms struggling for breath.  Across the street the river continues to rise, fast flowing, and the mighty Shiawassee River has become, indeed, the mighty Shiawassee.

Thirty some years ago I moved from sunny Southern California to a very small town in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.  (And that’s a whole other story.)  One of the memories I have of that time, however, is that of the rain.  I hated the rain.  I was the high school kid without a car and, most days, walked about a mile to school.  When it would rain, as seemed so often the case, I would curse my existence and the sorry circumstances which had put me in that miserable little town.  Walking along the rudimentary sidewalk, pant bottoms wicking the water up my legs, shoes getting soaked and my feet squishing within: I hated the rain.  Every step was misery. The rain was the meteorological manifestation of everything that was wrong with my life at that time.

The first time I softened my miserable perspective on rain was just a few years later, early on in college. I had a girlfriend with a '73 Mustang and we drove to the beach in the rain.  And, right then and there, she convinced me of the beauty to be found taking a walk on a stormy ocean beach with the waves exploding and a steady mist enveloping all, soaking us through and through.  No sex, no drugs, no booze; just a happy afternoon getting soaked in an Oregon rain.  What a first.

That was the day, and maybe there were others, but slowly, surely, and unbelievably I have come to love a rainy day.  And so it is as I walk up to work, river rising, wrapped in my trench coat, umbrella in hand, clopping along in my Portland Clogs, I feel energized and look forward to the day ahead.  The shoes are a throwback to my days at the University of Oregon and they look like something borrowed from the prop box backstage at a KISS concert.  But they do make for happy feet and happy memories as I walk up the hill and only wish I had all the day to enjoy the rain.

Crazy

I'm not sure how long it will take for all the excitement over the death of Osama Bin Laden to dissipate.  I'm not sure how long it will take for his compatriots to act out in revenge.  I'm am certain both will happen.

For years I have been a pacifist and against the death penalty.  I have changed my mind to some degree, however, in that I don't think you can rehab some people.  More importantly, some people are probably just not worth the effort.  When I think about truly heinous crimes in which children are grossly molested, tortured, or killed, I realize such acts are perpetrated by individuals who are severely damaged.  Nonetheless I have come to believe that in such cases it is simply better to say, "game over."  What is the point in housing them in prison for the rest of their lives?  Rehabilitation? I believe there is no point whatsoever and society is best served by simply removing such individuals from the planet.

Bin Laden may have been such a person.  I'm fairly sure many people in this world believe the same of the U.S. and its aggressor policies and actions which leave the dead and injured in their wake.  I can't really say I know enough to vote yea or nay on that one. Given the horrors of September 11, 2001, I definitely lean towards a yea vote.  Adios, Osama.

The sad part in all of this is that we continue performing the same actions and expect a different outcome. We kill and hope to achieve peace.  We wage war and hope to end war.  After hundreds of years of human history we continue to adhere to policies of aggression in order to resolve political and religious disputes.  We kill one man as the literal and figurative head of a hated organization and hope that action will lead to their larger demise.  All sides invoke the power of God and righteousness.  Through all of time, through thousands upon thousands of people killed, lives destroyed, humanity decimated, we have made no peace.  The harvest has been nothing but strained intervals of quiet among factions, a quiet which now appears to be dissolving.

As a friend of mine's Grandmother used to say: If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.  To believe otherwise is the very definition of crazy. The only question I really have is not whether or not we should have killed Bin Laden. Rather, I wonder whether or not our biology will ever allow us to successfully subvert the animal and elevate the intellectual.  Will humans ever learn that war does not bring peace?  There are evil people in the world who do unspeakable evil to others and I have come to believe they need to disappear.  The same is not true of entire nations and societies.  We have to figure out a better way, one which involves caring rather than killing or, I fear, we are doomed. Crazy, huh?