Month: January 2016

Not so wonderful granddaughter

Beverly Family, Life, Relationships, Senior health, Work

I love my grandmother. She is a strong woman who has been through a lot in her nearly-90 years. She takes it all in stride without complaint or excuse. She is no saint but, in this day and age, she’s about as close as one can get. But I have a confession to make (and it horrifies me to mention this publicly) – I didn’t call her during Christmas. For the very first time in my 44 years, I didn’t speak with my mother’s mother to wish her a happy season and tell her that I love her.

Yes, I was busy. Yes, I sent a gift. Yes, she had other relatives around her, but there is no valid excuse. I felt guilty about it from the get-go but I kept putting it off, putting it off. Yesterday I learned that my siblings also didn’t contact her and my heart broke in two.

I called her this morning and she was delighted. No attitude, no words of reproach, no judgement, she was just happy to hear from me. Which made me feel better, but kinda made me feel worse.

I’m telling you this for one reason: I get it. I’m no different than you, I get lost in my life and assume that the elderly person I love will be fine without me. But I work with seniors and see it every single day… the loneliness, the feeling of insignificance. I should know better.

This a large part of why I believe in the retirement lifestyle so strongly. Yes, it’s important to keep in touch with your grandmother, but it is also comforting to know that when you can’t, when life pulls you in all directions and best intentions get pushed aside, you can trust that she always has someone to talk to, to smile and ask about her day. There is someone to make sure she eats healthy and often; there is someone to make sure she isn’t hurting or taken advantage of; there is someone to pick her up when she falls. It’s not as good as a call from her grandchildren but it’s the next best thing.

Now, go call your grandmother. Tell her I said hi.

Heavens to Murgatroyd!

Beverly Funny, Life, Work

{This was emailed to me by an old friend… definitely worth sharing!}

Heavens to Murgatroyd! Lost Words from our childhood: Words gone as fast as the buggy whip! – by  Richard Lederer

About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of  the inexorable march of technology.  These phrases included “Don’t touch that dial,” “Carbon copy,” “You sound like a broken record” and  “Hung out to dry.”

Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie.  We’d put on our best bib and tucker to straighten up and fly right –  Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers!  Jumping Jehoshaphat! Holy moley!  We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley and even a regular guy couldn’t accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell but when’s the last time anything was swell?  Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A, of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers.  Oh, my aching back.  Kilroy was here but he isn’t anymore.

We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap and before we can say, Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, this is a fine kettle of  fish! we discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind.  We blink and they’re gone.  Where have all those phrases gone? Long gone:  Pshaw! The milkman did it! Hey, it’s your nickel. Don’t forget to pull the chain, knee high to a grasshopper.  Well, Fiddlesticks! Going like sixty.  I’ll see you in the funny papers.  Don’t take any wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd!

It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver  pills.  This can be disturbing stuff!  We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times.  For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age.  We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory. 

It’s one of the greatest advantages of aging.

See ya later, alligator!