Steven Hilbert said, “This is not a dress rehearsal.” Bill says that the problem is that people want things to be the way they used to be. If it were possible, I’d hit the reset button. However, we can relive our lives only through memories and photos. Thinking too often about the past is a slippery slope that causes discontentment. Here’s what Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden:
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it . . . Love your life, poor as it is . . . You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling glorious hours, even in a poor house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring.
Along with Mark Twain, I consider Thoreau to be the best writer whom America has produced. However, I’d prefer not to live in the poor house! Granted, we should value our life, but it is surely more enjoyable to be independent and have a little money.
Until recent times, there were actually poor houses, such as one on Road 40 in Hancock Co. and Julietta in eastern Marion Co. where there were periodic scandals and even a Grand Jury investigation of graft and mismanagement. Here’s a different view of a poor house from Thoreau’s. In 1889 “The New Castle Courier” published this chilling account about the poor house located near New Castle:
Every room in the house is a model of neatness, the beds are well furnished and clean, there is plenty to eat and kind treatment, yet a visit leaves no pleasant impression upon one. The inmates are the isolated unfortunates of the world, victims of a cruel fate, friendless outcasts, sufferers from disease and infirmities, with their days of realization that their enjoyment in life is all past, and now in the purgatory of mere existence they look forward to nothing but death to relieve them of their unhappy being.
Our acquaintance who is nearly ninety and about whom I wrote recently is a long, long way from the poor house. The facility where she lives costs $7,000 a month, plus other expenses. Nor is she isolated as she has a loving family who visit several times a week and keep a sharp eye on her care.
Her every physical need is satisfied by her family and the staff, yet she is miserable and depressed much of the time. She unrealistically imagines that she could live alone in an apartment or with family. However, she would require 24/7 care which is prohibitively expensive, and her children, too, are growing older. She has few interests, and many residents are “out of it” so that she receives little stimulation. Her daughters have tried unsuccessfully to direct her into positive channels.
Part of it is a difference in mindset. For example, our friend Jean’s mother lived out her last years in a two-person, scantily furnished room. She was wheelchair bound, but gadded around the facility and played euchre with buddies she made. Cheerful to the end, she even had her wheelchair oiled so that she could win a wheelchair race at 500 Race time. Jean played euchre with them, and I sent her a naughty joke every week with which she regaled the staff.
As I said before, I do not want to live as if I already have one foot in the grave. However, we have tried to make sound financial and insurance preparations and shall stay here in our conveniently located ranch-style home as long as possible and hire help with cleaning, lawn care, driving and repairs as needed. Beyond that, the past is over; and who knows what the future holds? I must adjust my attitude as necessary and try to live my best life every day, rather than merely existing. wclarke@comcast.net