A Day In The Life

This famous quote, often attributed to actress Bette Davis, highlights that aging requires immense resilience, strength, and grit to endure physical and mental changes. It acknowledges the often painful realities of aging, while emphasizing the need for a stubborn, tough spirit to navigate the process.

I began as a “friendly visitor” about 9 months ago, to a woman in her mid eighties who was suffering with dementia. Her 91 year old husband was fully “with it” both mentally and physically, and had been taking care of his wife for the past two years by himself, until his children insisted he get aides to come in, shortly before I began visiting. It was hard for her to maintain any kind of conversation, and often she would tire and go to sleep, leaving me and her husband to chatting. A former History teacher, he was up on the latest news and our conversations were always lively and interesting. Sadly his wife passed away a few months later. By this time I had forged a friendship with the husband, and told him I would continue to visit weekly.

Over these past months I have seen some of the difficulties he has encountered and continues to. The world has changed so much, it is hard to keep up. He has a cell phone but is frustrated by not being able to access more than making a call and answering a call. Email retrieval is a constant source of frustration. I am 20 years younger and attempt to keep up with the changing world around me and sometimes feel a step behind, I can understand his feeling challenged. He has shared that he no longer has the resilience he once had, that things that would have been nothing to take care of or handle now often seem insurmountable. He said sometimes he often wonders who the person looking back at him in the mirror is- he doesn’t recognize himself-how did he get so old? He is able bodied, still drives, volunteers in a local hospital and stands with a group of protestors on a main drag in town once a week, protesting the war, the government, whatever the latest cause is. Last week I sat in on his Book Club meeting on Zoom that he had with 8 other men, all in their late 80’s. He is engaged in life, but the fact is he is still 91. He is still alone a lot.

I am at an age where almost all of the generation above me and my husband are gone. Parents, Aunts and Uncles, my husband’s brother. Though we may feel mentally we are younger than the actual number of our years, the fact is time is marching on. My friend is fortunate he is relatively healthy, and mentally astute, but his children have shared with me that his forgetfulness seems more pronounced of late. Has he noticed that too? Is the stress of being alone, of having to handle things and take care of things too great a burden? I try not to get too far ahead of myself, thinking of the years to come, what they will hold for me. I can only continue to make the best use of my time right now. I asked my friend how he had handled the mental decline of his wife, and he answered honestly that with each thing she was no longer able to do, he just picked up the slack. She couldn’t cook anymore, so he cooked (though he had never cooked a day in his life before) she could no longer walk without support so he got her a walker and then a wheelchair. He said he just continued on and dealt with each change as it came. I wondered to myself if that was denial, or not seeing the bigger picture, but for him it seemed to simply be taking each new stage and dealing with it when it presented itself. Living in the present. All any of us can do, or maybe should do.

This photo was taken as we walked a mile together in a local nature sanctuary.