Wednesday, September 15, 2004
MAY....IN THREES
May, this year, (1977) was very busy for us and full of not so good news. It seems things happen in bunches and I have lived long enough to bear it out. Mom always said things went in threes, and again….she was right. We had three bad things in May.
As I’ve written before, dad always looked after uncle Alfred who lived in Mountain Home, AR. After dad died, Warren and I continued in his stead. Uncle Alfred was having multi-health problems and we were perplexed about what to do. Being a stubborn old man he decided the pills they were giving him was making him sick. (Well, that might have been more true than not, the way pills are dished out to elder citizens.) Imagine our surprise on one of our visits when he told us he dug a hole in the yard and put all of his pill bottles in it…..covered it up. The look on his face was one of glee…….the little man’s revenge on all doctors. He was triumphant!!
Of course this alarmed us considerably since we had a 65-mile trip to look after him. In an emergency it was light years away. His health problems didn’t get any better and we talked him into going to a doctor for a good check-up. We were told he had “electrical” problems and he would need a pacemaker to regulate the heart. That required hospitalization and he had no Medicare. He had opted not to have it when he signed up for it. He had no insurance. We made it through the red tape and after days of running back and forth he was back home in his trailer.
The occasions we had to visit him were quite educational. He had a huge jar of grape jelly on his table covered in mold, peanut butter, old bread….but the rest was even worse. He would buy a large pork roast (Danes love pork), cook it and grind it up with a hand grinder. He then made some kind of a loaf out of it and would eat it every meal till it was gone. It looked absolutely horrible….however…he was quite proud of his culinary abilities. How the man kept from dying of ptomaine poisoning is more than we could figure. Needless to say his condition worsened and we had to take him to the Nursing Home….doctor’s orders.
We spent a week getting the loose ends tied up with the sale of his trailer, moving his things, getting him settled and finishing the papers with the State of Arkansas. His landlady bought the trailer for $1000 and that was put on a funeral plan along with the other ready cash he had. He was taken care of for the time being and we breathed a sigh of relief.
Later in the month we learned grandma Strain was giving up her apartment and moving to Shawnee with George Sr. and his wife. She was getting her pills all mixed up and no longer able to care for herself in her little apartment in Cabool. We would miss her for we always had her here for the special occasions and many times……“just because.” She was a woman who never knew what it was to be spoiled by having too much in the way of material things or in affection. Her days had been lived out by only thinking of others.
In rapid succession we learned of a tragedy that happened to some good friends of ours. Their grandson was in his backyard riding his bike when a car crashed through shrubbery between the road and yard….killing him instantly. It was an unbelievable tragedy and devastated the whole family. Sometimes it is hard to understand why things happen like they do. Life and death are both realities and some things just aren’t meant to be understood.
May was one of those times in our family. Uncle Alfred went to a nursing home, grandma Strain went to family and a young grandson was taken at an early age. God alone knows every “why” we encounter in life and promises the eventual outcome will be good. It helps all of us if we can just accept that…..and go on.
Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther
As I’ve written before, dad always looked after uncle Alfred who lived in Mountain Home, AR. After dad died, Warren and I continued in his stead. Uncle Alfred was having multi-health problems and we were perplexed about what to do. Being a stubborn old man he decided the pills they were giving him was making him sick. (Well, that might have been more true than not, the way pills are dished out to elder citizens.) Imagine our surprise on one of our visits when he told us he dug a hole in the yard and put all of his pill bottles in it…..covered it up. The look on his face was one of glee…….the little man’s revenge on all doctors. He was triumphant!!
Of course this alarmed us considerably since we had a 65-mile trip to look after him. In an emergency it was light years away. His health problems didn’t get any better and we talked him into going to a doctor for a good check-up. We were told he had “electrical” problems and he would need a pacemaker to regulate the heart. That required hospitalization and he had no Medicare. He had opted not to have it when he signed up for it. He had no insurance. We made it through the red tape and after days of running back and forth he was back home in his trailer.
The occasions we had to visit him were quite educational. He had a huge jar of grape jelly on his table covered in mold, peanut butter, old bread….but the rest was even worse. He would buy a large pork roast (Danes love pork), cook it and grind it up with a hand grinder. He then made some kind of a loaf out of it and would eat it every meal till it was gone. It looked absolutely horrible….however…he was quite proud of his culinary abilities. How the man kept from dying of ptomaine poisoning is more than we could figure. Needless to say his condition worsened and we had to take him to the Nursing Home….doctor’s orders.
We spent a week getting the loose ends tied up with the sale of his trailer, moving his things, getting him settled and finishing the papers with the State of Arkansas. His landlady bought the trailer for $1000 and that was put on a funeral plan along with the other ready cash he had. He was taken care of for the time being and we breathed a sigh of relief.
Later in the month we learned grandma Strain was giving up her apartment and moving to Shawnee with George Sr. and his wife. She was getting her pills all mixed up and no longer able to care for herself in her little apartment in Cabool. We would miss her for we always had her here for the special occasions and many times……“just because.” She was a woman who never knew what it was to be spoiled by having too much in the way of material things or in affection. Her days had been lived out by only thinking of others.
In rapid succession we learned of a tragedy that happened to some good friends of ours. Their grandson was in his backyard riding his bike when a car crashed through shrubbery between the road and yard….killing him instantly. It was an unbelievable tragedy and devastated the whole family. Sometimes it is hard to understand why things happen like they do. Life and death are both realities and some things just aren’t meant to be understood.
May was one of those times in our family. Uncle Alfred went to a nursing home, grandma Strain went to family and a young grandson was taken at an early age. God alone knows every “why” we encounter in life and promises the eventual outcome will be good. It helps all of us if we can just accept that…..and go on.
Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther
