Mortality

The older folks in my life have suddenly become, well... older.  More frail. False parts. Forgetful. Some with what could be considered "quality of life" issues.  It makes me so sad.

My dad doesn't have any teeth left.  Not a one!  But, he does have a shiny, smiley set of pearly dentures.  He never had good teeth in the past; years of smoking will really do a number on dentition.  He never had a nice smile.  Smoking, coupled with a barroom brawl or two, (not to mention a psycho, combative ex-wife) and a couple teeth knocked out will also do a number on dentition.   He also can't breath very well.  I've seen him at time when his lips are literally blue!  He wheezes and huffs and puffs, all while pulling on his damn cigarette.  Wonder how long his shiny. smiley, pearly dentures will hold their pearly, smiley shine.  I wonder when his heart will just give out; or his lungs.  My sister bought him all the stuff to smoke the "e-smokes" but he won't use it.  It sits on his cupboard, glowing tip and all, while he lights up another coffin nail.  I'm afraid that I will get a phone call one of these days, saying Dad keeled over and died.  He's only 64 and I'm only 45.  I'm not ready to lose my dad.  I don't know what I'll do with myself if that happens.  I wish he'd quit the smokes.  If wishes were nickels, right?



My mom isn't any better.  Though she has all her teeth, she is so overweight that she can't mow her own lawn.  She is so, well... I'm just going to say it...fat that she can't bend over to paint her toenails.  My mother used to always paint her toenails!  My mother used to always mow her own lawn.  My mother had a mini-heart attack or something like that while trying to make her bed!!!  Are you freaking kidding me?  Making her bed?!?!  And she won't do anything about it.  My mom has always been heavy but she's also always been active.  She used to pick up 80 lb. bales of hay and stack them ALL DAY LONG!  She used to brand half grown calves and cut off their testicles, BY HERSELF.  She's always been big, but she's always been tough and strong too!  I've seen my mom go postal on an abusive husband and literally BULLDOG him to the ground and forcefully tell him (while her 200+ ass was sitting on him, pinning him to the pavement), "If you ever lay a hand on me again, you SOB, I'll kill you!"  And dammit! she meant it.  Now, she sits on her duff, knitting, watching tv, eating absolute crap (you NEVER go to her house without finding a pan of brownies or a chocolate cake on the counter AND ice cream in the freezer. I've seen numerous candy bar wrappers in her trash and she stashes candy bars in her bedroom nightstand) and wonders why her heart is weakened and why she has diabetes. I wish she would do something.  Become a vegetarian or something.  Hell, just go for a walk in the evenings.  I'm afraid she will die.  I'm afraid that she will bend over to tie her shoes and her heart will explode.  How much abuse can her heart take?  It's trying to work for her but pumping blood throughout a big body (I'm going to honestly say that my mother is well into the 300 lb range) can cause the dang thing to just up and quit!  I don't want to lose my mom.  She's only 63 and I'm only 45.  I'm not ready to not have a mom!

My grandma peed her pants in public yesterday.  Seriously!  I was helping her out of her chair (at a little patio diner where we were eating dinner) to walk with her to the restroom.  She only made it about 5 steps before she couldn't hold it any longer.  I watched the inside of her denim jeans change color, from dry to wet.  I was stunned! But I wasn't as stunned with that as I was to find out that this was the 2nd time that day that she'd wet her pants.  What?  This is the woman who never, and I mean NEVER left the house without her hair done, her make up on, her wardrobe impeccable, complete with matching earrings, shoes and handbag.  Why, even earlier this year during our Mother's Day gathering, my grandma came dressed to the nines!  And two months later, she's peeing her pants in public.  This is also the first time I truly realized how frail and tiny she is.  She's like a little bird with hollow bones.  She's bruised on her arms and hands.  She is unsteady on her feet.  She needed my arm to cross the street.  She needed my husband to help her walk up the stairs.  This is a woman who used to whip my ass without losing a step.  This is the same woman who for years and years rode horses and drove semi-trucks.  She did all this well into her 70's (except the whipping my ass part.   But she would've if I'd needed it, no doubt about that!)  Gramma has always been my Champion.  She went toe-to-toe with her second husband (a chunk of stove wood in her hand to back it up) once because he was being ornery with me.  When I used to live with her when I was a teenage mother, she stood up to a bad boyfriend I had and told him in some seriously salty language that if he didn't leave me alone and quit coming around her place bugging me, she'd shoot him. (She did have a gun for shooting coyotes and I know for a fact she knew how to use it, so maybe she would have.)  I'm sad to see that there isn't any grit left in her, that there isn't any salt left in her language.  My grandma is only 84 and I am only 45 and I will cry my eyes out when she leaves me.  I'm afraid it is going to be sooner than later.

It seems so sudden to me, that the older folks in my life have gotten so old.  I guess it's time to update my mind and refresh the data.  My folks, my grandma...they are old.  They've lived hard lives and I think that has aged them past their years.  They are not healthy.  Once they were strong, hearty and robust but they are not any longer.  That is a hard pill for me to swallow.  I've never really looked at their mortality like this.  It's inevitable.  I'm going to lose them.  It's never really hit home before now.