Entry 11 - March 16th, 2014
Straining
the Sands of Time...or a blip on the radar screen
I'm not quite sure when it begins to creep into your thoughts, but
eventually the thought of your own mortality is something that you'll have to
face. It might appear in the briefest instant when you notice a wrinkle or a
gray hair in the mirror during the morning routine...maybe as a series of
flashes when you brake hard in traffic to avoid the car in front of you and
you're not quite sure you'll stop in time. For some it's when they reach those
milestone birthdays that they dread and a party supply store makes a few bucks
on black balloons and tombstone cards...or after they have a major medical
procedure that they weren't sure they'd see the other side of. The point
is...we're mortal. We have a finite span of time in which to spend our time on
this earth and at some point we'll come face to face with just those
thoughts...but what happens when you're not sure just how you fit into the
allotted time that you have left on this spinning blue mudball?
Recently, my Grandmother has been in the hospital with some
medical trouble and she's been really down. This recent bout is not the first
time she's had a medical scare in the last few years and she has been
increasingly aware of her remaining years, making us all aware that she knows
she is nearing the end of her terrestrial journey and that she is ready to go
home when the Lord calls. You can imagine that this doesn't necessarily make
conversations easy since most of us would rather not dwell on the fact that she
might soon pass on. I did get over to the hospital to sit with her a couple of
times during her stay and in one of our conversations she alluded to the idea
that she feels like a relic in our ever increasingly digital age. We watched as
one of the med techs came in to check and replace the battery in one of the
devices monitoring her vitals. It was a small box that had a few leads running
to a patch on her hand and the tech explained that it was transmitting her data
over a wireless signal to the main desk so the staff could keep an eye on her
levels and he just wanted to make sure it continued to run smoothly. After he
left she remarked on how out of place she felt amidst all the increasing
technology. She didn't have a computer hooked to the internet for very long and
apparently there was some sort of scam that they were almost victim of and ever
since she is afraid that it could happen again. (the fact that some scammer
called their house a few months back to tell them that I was in jail in
Amsterdam and they needed money to get me released has not alleviated those
fears...but that's another story entirely)
Grandma and Grandpa will both be 85 this year, next month in fact.
The speed at which technology has been increasing and changing just in the
latter period of their lives is staggering and I can see why it would scare
her. The world being full of people that want to take advantage of the elderly
just makes it worse and truly makes my heart hurt. It takes a person operating
at seriously low depths to scam children and elders...we should be treasuring
them and learning from the naiveté of the young and the wisdom of the old...not
stealing from them. I could go on about that but it would take this into a
whole different area and become a bit of a rant...which is not my intention.
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