Face of Aging
So 85-year-old Uncle Mike, the tenured political science professor at Gonzaga and the Jesuit priest who married Janine and I, is in town this week – bringing all his peccadillos with him. This morning he managed to put three or four shakes of sugar on his cinnamon LIFE cereal. ‘A little heavy handed there?' my wife said with a smile….'you do know it’s ‘cinnamon flavored?’ 'Well, um, it just needs a little something,' he said coughing a bit while using the bowl as a cup to drink up the last bits of sugary milk. 'It’s a wonder you don’t have diabetes' my mother-in-law quipped. 'Well, I do take this pill every day to control my blood sugar….my regular endocrinologist gave it to me…but I’m not diabetic.'
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I’m pretty sure you are but say this for Uncle Mike, he has his idiosyncrasies but he can eat what he wants as far as I’m concerned because, nearest I can tell, he’s blessing all the food and he’s the one who may be a key vote for me when it’s my time. I quip, but having the old guy here with my mother-in-law reminds me how challenging the healthcare system is. Neither of them can walk up or down any stairs without help and a lap around the block is like digging a hole to China. Both them have fallen asleep at least a dozen times mid-sentence since arriving. 'What’s wrong with Uncle Mike?' my daughter Sophie asked yesterday, scared for the answer. 'I think he’s dead' Janine said, 'go check him Bry.' My mother-in-law was in the corner laughing for some reason. Uncle Mike simply fell asleep and when he awoke to the dog barking, he picked up his story midway about how his parents used to take them to the 5 and 10 for Christmas but one year didn’t because they all got Bs in grammar class. God bless them. Uncle Mike and Ellen live somewhat independently part of the year battling an encyclopedia of conditions, dementia, vertigo, osteoarthritis, prostate cancer, skin cancer, anxiety and diabetes. One wears compression socks, the other wears pain cream. They are the face of aging in America and highlight so much of the challenge ahead….but when they are here, thank God, they sure do bring a bit of levity.