THE STRUGGLE: LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

 

 

 

Dorothy A. Seese
August 11, 2005
NewsWithViews.com

No child will believe this, time moves too slowly for them because they have a goal. Their focus is on growing to the age of independence -- from parental authority, from forced schooling, from sandlot bullies -- to the world of the adult. Once they reach their age of emancipation (which was 21 in my young days, 18 now) something happens to the clocks of the world. The clock master sets them all on fast forward and time zooms past us with the speed of life and the confusion of daylight savings time.

When we're young and strong, watching elderly folks slowly unwind themselves out of vehicles and shuffling uncertainly across the pavement to the store, we shake our heads in disbelief. Why did this happen? Why are older people so s-l-o-w? Why doesn't someone do something so they don't have to be outside and in the way of those who are already late with their chores?

Some of us are "out of the way." We live in retirement communities with other aging folks who have various types of struggles. There's the fight against pain, a common thing among the elderly. Joints seem to be reluctant to do the job they've done all these years. They've retired before we want them to. Bones "ache" because of various types of inflammation. We hate pills and have to take them to live any semblance of a normal life regardless of the cause.

And what we fear most is the loss of independence, the ability to live alone and manage our own lives, the relegation of human beings to institutional warehouses called "care centers," the euphemism for nursing homes. We've heard the stories, some of us have seen them because loved ones were put in such hellholes to get them out of the way of the younger and busier and swifter of motion.

Family, friends and relatives die and we're shocked. Maybe we're mortal also, perhaps we'll die. Of course we will, but it has to be later, the time is never now. How could it be now? We haven't finished all we want to do, we're busy, or we're bored but things will get better. At least we're alive even if we're existing rather than living. Most of the world exists in far worse conditions than we've ever known, so let's enjoy the air conditioned retirement condos and apartments. We're preserving our rights as human beings there, we aren't just numbers in our own residences. We, along with the young, might be just numbers to the world, but not to ourselves. Not to our neighbors. We have identity.

We struggle to keep that identity with a determination that seems to be made of tungsten steel.

Keeping the ability to drive, and a vehicle to use, is extremely important to us. There's a world out there that we can reach when we have a way to get there, when we choose and by ourselves if need be, we don't need company to be free, just to share freedom.

Someone important dies and for awhile, the world takes note, then goes on. It cannot stop because of the mortality of one individual, no matter how "great" that person was in human perception. No one is great in a hurricane or an avalanche, a tornado or a flood disaster. People all struggle then. The young struggle, the aged are moved if they cannot move themselves, a human-to-human temporary bond is set up when we realize we're all just mortals!

Our ideas are important to us. We've been here a lot longer than other folks, the youth who will feel as we did, that we can change the world for the better. We don't want to see a good world get worse, but it does. We want to keep the good and discard the bad, but it won't work that way, the bad comes charging along beside and then overtakes our world. It changes, we try to adapt but conscience pulls a halt at some point along the way. "That's bad." is our pronouncement, comparing the direction of the present and the apparent future with the world we knew. We wanted to leave this world (at some future time) better than we found it, and we're seeing it grow worse and can do nothing to stop it.

We struggle to try and make this generation see, understand, and do something to bring back the best and throw out the worst. Does it work? No.

Finally, it becomes obvious that it is all we can do to protect ourselves against the ravages of age, to stay able to live alone. A few do not mind community living, most abhor the idea. We've always reserved our right to choose our friends and select how we'll live according to our means. Some of us are night crawlers and we wish to be left that way, not forced to sleep by an attendant who comes around to see to it we swallow pills to keep us sleeping at their convenience, not ours. Community residences are more like boot camps than homes. There is such regimentation. What they view as entertainment is not our choice.

We rebel at the thought of ever losing our independence, and determine that this institutionalization shall never happen to us. Then we hope or pray for death to come before dependency. When we were children, we were dependent, we longed for emancipation. Sixty years pass and we face dependency again, a grim prospect for the future.

When dependency is on our own family there's a tinge of guilt over being a burden. Few seem to have anyone willing to take on the enormous responsibility of caring for the elderly and infirm. Life is already too pressured, too full, too fast. We see the elderly and see our own future, it isn't pleasant, so get them out of sight. This isn't the way our world was designed by God to operate, but it is the way it has become under man's failed government systems. We're expected to live our time and then we have a duty to die and get out of the way.

Maybe the government, always eager to offer help, will help with the problem of the elderly also. At one end, science is trying to prolong life and at the other, inventing new ways to terminate it peacefully. Government will find a way to balance the problem of overpopulation by eliminating useless feeders who struggle just to go to the market for food and the pharmacy for medications we cannot afford.

God help us! We're only human.

A society that acknowledges the God who is Creator of the whole world, and the One who is returning at His set time, values human life. Where there is no acknowledgment of the sanctity of life, then God is rejected and we're just a higher form of goo -- with a very short span of useful time on earth.

Yet when we look at the marvels of creation, even our very lives, we should be intensely aware of the God of Creation, and His plan for it. That makes life more than just a struggle, it is a difficult pilgrimage toward a greater goal.

The struggle ends with a new beginning. That is a worthwhile endeavor, a glorious struggle.

© 2005 Dorothy A. Seese - All Rights Reserved