December 11, 2010
The Immutable Facts of Life
Susan Orlean put together a brief, but rather beautiful post on her New Yorker blog about the limits of technological progress and coping with the harsh realities of our humanness–namely the deterioration of our bodies and minds. She uses her mother, who’s slowly been drifting into dementia, as an example:
Sometimes I’m dazzled by how modern and fabulous we are, and how easy everything can be for us; that’s the gilded glow of technology, and I marvel at it all the time. And then my mom will call, and in the course of the conversation she’ll say something disjointed that disturbs me and reminds me of her frailty, and then she’ll mention that it’s snowing hard in Ohio and I’ll wonder how she’s going to get to the grocery store, and I look at my gadgets and gizmos, and I realize none of them will help me. If anything, they’ve filled me with the unreal idea that everything is possible; that virtual is actual; that you can delete things you don’t like; that you can find and have whatever it is you want whenever you want it; but instead I’m learning that the truest, immutable facts of life are a lot harder and slower and sometimes sadder, and always mystifying.
The more of life I experience the more I’m convinced that more so than death, war or utter annihilation, my greatest fear is that those I love will one day lose the ability to remember me or recognize my face. I don’t think an iPad can change that.
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This is great, Josh. Thanks. It reminds me of a Lydia Davis story–”Television”–that I was just rereading the other day. Here are the first two lines: “We have all these favorite shows coming on every evening. They say it will be exciting and it always is.” It shows a family living in front of the television and reacting to programs in such a way that gesture is all that remains. They make fine judgments about every detail–but only in reference to matters that have already been too broadly abstracted to actually take one to a physical world. When Orlean wonders how her mother will get to the grocery store–the gigantic mystery of hum of civilization kicks in. I guess most of us have been trained to look quick for an exit when that flood approaches.
A friend who was a caregiver for four elderlies during a couple of decades had an interesting observation. Through aging, we become even more who we are. For instance, her prickly father turned into barbed wire, dangerous. Her mother, a sweet southerner, charmed everyone who crossed her path — doctors, grocery store clerks.
And an uncle of mine, the one we all adored. He recognized no one in his later years (he died at 95). But he was a courtly gentleman anyway. He appeared agitated only when he could not stand up when a woman approached. Old habits.
So, this has made me look around, and at myself, in a more thoughtful way.
Yes, I have come more and more to ponder what “identity” signifies as elderly relations and, now, even a friend fifteen years my senior slip into the twilight zone.
Thank you, Carole, for your thoughtful comment.
Losing one’s grasp on the details may not be the worst thing.
Oh, and I love your use of “elderlies.” On one of my last visits to my mother, she said, “I think that we elderlies should have expiration dates.”
Grace always frowns when she sees older women who are clearly battling the aging process–these sexta/septuagenarians tend to have multiple facelifts, wear tight jeans and and carry their oxygen tanks around with them in designer hand bags. Grace usually shakes her head at them, then she grabs my arm and pulls in closer to tell me how excited she is to grow old with me and that I better not try anything to stop it.
So, in a way — despite the fear — I’m excited to grow old,
My first husband told me he loved watching me grow older. I think he had something there.
Josh, y’all, this is lovely. Danny and I have been together a while, we’ve watched each other get older. We’re just starting to go to the doctor more often, watching blood-pressure, watching cholesterol readings. Taking pills and pills.
Danny’s way cuter now, than when I met him, he makes me laugh every day. I think, about me, he would say the sand. I can’t help believing we’ll grow old together.
Older together.
I’m growing less sanguine about growing old, though it does not scare me yet. But I always thought I would grow old with somebody, and now it appears I will grow old alone.
Of course, in a sense we all of us grow old alone, but facing the prospect without companion or family . . . well, let’s just say I appreciate my friends more and more.