I visit my ex-mother-in-law at call it what you will, a Care Facility. A Nursing Home. What started as a sense of…duty…has become something I look forward to for a variety of reasons.
The African Gray parrot in the lobby who gives you that whistle every time you walk in. George, an aide- another shameless flirt. Ruthie—4'10" of pure boss energy—who makes executive decisions like it’s legal for Grandma to get her thimble of pinot grigio at 5 PM. Connie, who always has her hair done and Fran who has one leg and a purse full of dog treats, two best friends stationed by the front door, making bets on whether the ambulance is making a pickup or delivery, and whether whoever's inside is dead or alive.
Sure, it occasionally smells like someone pooped their Depends, but given the sheer volume they must go through, the air is not suppressive. There isn’t a sense of buoyancy…or vitality pumping through the place, but a pleasant sort of energy resides in the halls.
Last Saturday, I stepped off the elevator to find what was basically a one-man Lawrence Welk revival. The irony of the song hit me hard. "Those Were the Days." A song of youth, laughter and a golden age, played to an audience who could now barely lift their heads.
I wondered what kind-if any-memories stirred within this little group. I wondered who they had been, if they had lived full lives, raised and still had families, built careers, fell in love, felt loss. Did they carpe their diems? Did they know they were living while life was happening to them? Did they realize…they were getting….older?
Did they visit anyone who gave them a preview of life’s coming attractions? Anyone poke them to pay attention cuz time is tearing by quite fast, and will go faster and that’s a fact?
When you're five, one year is 20% of your entire existence. When you're fifty, it's 2%. Time doesn't actually speed up—our perception of it shrinks in proportion to how much we've already lived. (This is a slight variation of girl math, but I think I get it.)
Also. When we're young, everything is a first. First day of school. First love. First job. First apartment. First husband. These new and novel experiences burn themselves into our memory, making time feel substantial, expandable, infinite. Then we settle into patterns. Ennui sets in and we think we’ve seen it all before. Days turn into weeks into months, into years of the same alarm clock, coffee, complaints about kids, colleagues, traffic and weather. Our life blurs, and we stop paying attention because familiarity breeds the illusion of endless time which is lost on us until we wake up in a nursing home in St. Paul wearing purple slippers and like it or not, we’re getting wheeled down to hear an accordion player, play bingo or endure a clown.
My friend Lyle tells the story of pulling up on Main Street in the small Iowa town where he’s from next to Norma who was well into her 90’s.
“Mornin, Norma.” He said.
She looked at him with dazed expression and said,
“Lyle. What happened?”
Right now, most of us are still pretty vertical. Still ambulatory. Our bodies (mostly) do what we ask them to do. Our minds work (relatively speaking). We can still taste our food, remember words to the songs and tap our toes if we want to. We can feel how the people we love love us back.
The tragedy isn't that time passes. The tragedy is we sleepwalk through it. How do we wake ourselves up? How do we actually live these days instead of just survive them?
Here’s a couple observations- courtesy of your local care facility.
1. Stop saving things for later. No more deferment plan. Get up for the sunrise, call the friend, use the good china, open the fancy wine.
2. Notice something different every day. The way the light hits your cat in the window. How good coffee smells, especially if someone else is making it.
3. Hit pause on the ordinary. When your kid stops by and actually wants to talk to you, don’t think about the laundry or what’s for dinner. Stop. Stare. Maybe even give em a sniff. Think “I am actually getting to hear what she is thinking right now.”
4. Make your own "snapshot moments" – When you’re sitting and laughing with friends over dinner, literally pause for three seconds and think "I want to remember this exact moment." Not for Instagram, just for you.
5. Ask Norma’s question. But don’t wait til you’re 90. Ask “What happened?” every day. Make sure there’s at least one thing that made you proud, or made you smile.
The truth is, we're all heading to our version of A Care Center. But here, the beautiful thing when it comes to that song. We can rewrite it. Instead of a lament for time lost, it can become a call to action. These are the days. We still gottem. No wistful sigh or sleepwalking here. Just simple satisfaction for showing up every darn day we’re given.
Big Thanks to the Accordian Player who is so fantastic and my friends at The Care Center.
