Back in October, I cheerfully titled a post “I’m Old. And Here’s What I Like About That.”
I was liking old age at the time. With 82 years to my credit, life felt bountiful, plentiful.
Two-and-half weeks later, I succumbed to head-spinning, nauseating vertigo, and for the next five weeks, I got around the house like an old lady — stooped over a hospital-issue walker and taking the stairs cautiously: up the stairs on all fours, down the stairs on the seat of my pants.
Woozy day and night, I took to using the walker to steady myself as I got up from the toilet.
Plans for remodeling the upstairs bathroom were already underway when my head started spinning. Extra grab bars for the shower were part of the plan. This seemed prudent. But now it looked like I’d need yet another grab bar — a short one next to the toilet.
Which set me to wondering, am I still old? If I need a grab bar by the toilet, doesn’t that make me elderly?
No Grab Bars for My Grandaunt
My grandaunt Pinky had no grab bars in her cottage on Bass Lake. She was too elegant for that. She was middle-aged when I knew her as a kid growing up in Michigan, and she was a one of a kind. She was the only person on our side of the lake with a lawn in her front yard. She was the only one with what you would call a yard. Most people came to Bass Lake to live in the woods among the pine trees and crackle berries, not to cut the grass.
Besides the lawn, my grandaunt owned a set of corncob holders. Today you can buy the things online. Back then, only city sophisticates knew about corncob holders. They served to keep the butter off our fingers as our teeth went up and down the kernel rows while Pinky told gossipy stories of times gone by in places like Chicago and Milwaukee.
Pinky had a mind of her own. She had those corncob holders and that lawn. Also a husband she divorced and remarried.
Pinky talked a lot and laughed a lot. She had a lot to say. That’s the heritage on my mother’s side. The women talked and laughed. My grandmother Toto was a talker. So was my mother and my mother’s sister Dickie and, of course, Pinky.
I grew to adulthood eventually. My family stopped spending summers at Bass Lake, and I didn’t see my grandaunt for decades. When we finally met again, Pinky was no longer middle-aged. She wasn’t even old. She was elderly. Her dark hair, once seductive, was now mostly white. Her face was gaunt, her eyes drooped, her body so frail she couldn’t stand up to greet me. She could barely smile, let alone carry on a conversation.
Am I Still Old? Or Am I Elderly Now?
It’s been two months now, and the vertigo is letting up. I stand upright as I go up and down the stairs. The walker is stored out of sight in the basement, and I cancelled the grab bar for the toilet. It seems I’m not elderly after all. I’m back to being old.
Still, elderly lurks in my future. When it arrives, I’ll probably be OK with weak, stooped and gaunt. But I don’t think I can do without the talking and laughing.
More about old and older at “The Shame of Aging. The Big Seven-Five Has Finally Arrived.” Also, “Tint My Eyebrows? It’s an Existential Question.”
To me, “old” sounds so…well…old. Elderly, on the other hand, sounds like we’re merely on our way to being old. I also know some folks much younger than we, who have suffered from the vertigo you experienced.
I’m not going to say that we’re either old or elderly. I’m just going to say we are women of many seasons. 😀
I love it — we are women of many seasons. Hopefully the folks you know who had vertigo got over it … fast. Mine is lingering. Very annoying.
You always hit these observations and face them head on and then explore them.
Thanks for the insight, Sharie. Good to know I’m making myself clear!
Good question good answer
Thanks. You made me laugh!
Can relate to what you’re saying! How would we be described in a news article if we were found on the street clubbed over the head or collapsed? Would it say “the elderly woman was transported to the hospital?” Pinkie died in her mid-seventies, a young thing!
So funny. Yes. Given our gray-to-white hairs, we’d surely be taken for elderly. Especially if we collapsed on the street.
As for our grandaunt Pinkie, it’s interesting that she was only in her mid-70s when she died. That is young. So many of the women I know who are in their 70s are pretty fit looking. They’re “old” maybe, but definitely not elderly. Pinky was a smoker, as I recall. In fact, I remember her (though it might have been Toto) climbing the very steep and unforgivingly sandy slope of Eagle Top with us one summer. You and I were bounding up the hill. She was huffing and puffing. “Don’t ever smoke,” she told us. “Or you’ll wind up like me. Out of breath.” I did smoke a little as a young woman, but the memory of her advice never left me. Which is maybe why I’ve made it into my 80s. And so have you!
Hi dear Barbara. I’d go ahead with the bar by the toilet. One never knows, and it might be useful. Get a pretty one and have it there. Let’s go for a walk one fine day, when the rain lets up. EB
Here’s my plan at the moment — order a vinyl-covered grab bar in a pretty, inconspicuous color. Mount it next to the toilet, but horizontally — not on an angle like most toilet grab bars — and call it a towel rack. Problem solved. Self-image preserved . . . Yes. Let’s walk. Postpone the day I’ll need that grab bar by a couple of years.