Kvetching v Miserable Kvetching

The Last Quarter has no shortage of pains or shaming disabilities .... and certainly no shortage of losses. The pains cover the known body ... the back, the hands, the joints, oh! dem knees! and shoulders! and hips! ... though, it's possible that headaches become less frequent. A woman once described to me her sense that for her and her husband to make love, a frontloader and other earth-moving equipment might be necessary to situate their bodies in a manner conducive to "lift-off." A 55 year old Urologist said to me that -- more or less -- everybody over the age of 50 leaks ... and he was over 50.

The losses do pile up. If I wasn't an orphan, I'd be taking care of "my ancients." For those of us with living parents in the US of A, we learn quickly that taking care of the old ones, finding a place where they can live with even a modicum of dignity and/or paying for that facility can lead us, ourselves,  to a vent on Skid Row. Medicare and -- when it's available -- Medicaid don't begin to solve the problems of finding a Medicaid-eligible bed; paying out of pocket for decent care is approximately $100,000 per year, well beyond the means of all but a few. Social Security might pay 20% of the cost. Veterans Benefits add $1,000 each month .... not a pittance ... but nowhere near enough. And Congress is poised to dip into these funds.

Then, there are the ghosts. We can count the pets of our adulthood that we've buried ... I think I've said good-bye to 11 loving and furry quadripeds ... 4 dogs and 7 cats. Three kids have moved out and, at this time, they are all still out. Many friends have gone ... some disappeared. And colleagues who we once played with in the cracks in our work schedule? Some hang in there, some send cards and many others are gone. Did they die? Who is to know?

Playing in the Last Quarter ain't for the feint of heart.

Still, there are some other areas where we may have an advantage over the youngin's. Indeed, depression has a lower frequency in post 65 year olds than in middle-aged folk (35-55). Why? Who knows. Have we learned to accept? Have the depressed ones died in greater numbers than the jubilant ones? We may come to believe that we no longer have anything to prove: if somebody doesn't like the way we think, too bad!

But what of the old and miserable, those for whom the pains and losses precipitate into something akin to the "trek of the walking dead" ... It has not been my experience that the pains and losses for these "zombies" are or have been greater than they are for others. No. I know of no one Playing in the Last Quarter who has lived and not suffered. These people -- pointedly -- seem committed to their misery ... and ...s/he who dares to tell them so bears the sin of purportedly making them more miserable.

The friends, lovers and spouses of such sufferers have the unenviable choice of being fools or bastards .... fools? if they continue to live under the cloud of misery ... bastards? if they refuse to do so.

Thus, are some of the choices of those over 63 years of age.