Guest Blogger: Cowtown Pattie

[EDITORIAL NOTE: While I'm away for a few days in Austin, Texas, several elderbloggers graciously agreed to fill in for me. Today, Cowtown Pattie of Texas Trifles finds an elegant way to tie together her mother’s refusal to grow old gracefully with a couple of surprising movies. Please welcome her to Time Goes By and visit her blog too.]

Earlier this evening while working at my computer and with no small amount of nervous qualm about my ability to compose a worthwhile guest post for Time Goes By, I am pulled away from my concentration by a phone call from my mother. She is almost in tears, having trouble breathing, and thinks she needs to go to the emergency room.

Mom will insist she is never sick (between complaints of chest pain, arthritic hands, and constipation), but she has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and moderate emphysema due to 55-plus years of smoking.

After nearly four hours in the emergency room, she is released with a diagnosis of exacerbated COPD and lower right lobular pneumonia. The pneumonia is mild enough to treat with medications at home and follow up with her primary care physician. My brother insisted he could do the return trip with Mom since I had been the pick-up person. I didn't refuse.

Nearing 75 years old, Mom still substitutes at least three days a week at a local public high school. She is as slight as a bird in appearance, but that fragile exterior is but a wily disguise for a woman who refuses to "age gracefully".

After my dad died in 2000, I knew she was lonely and at odds with what to do with herself. Theirs was always a stormy relationship, but the last few years before Dad's passing from lung cancer had been different; it seemed they suddenly discovered they really did love each other. A short time after his death I encouraged her to join an active group at the local senior citizen center, but she was insulted that I would even suggest that she spend her time "with all those old people".

For a while, Mom dated a gentleman whose late wife had been a good friend. They went out to eat and dancing for a few months, and then just as quick as it began, the little affair was over. Seemed the nice gentleman wanted to marry her, and she had no intentions of being some "old man's" nursemaid and housekeeper.

As I sat with her this evening, I reflected on her disdain for anything and anyone she deems "old". It is her own personal illusion of smoke and mirrors constructed to hide a paralyzing fear of death. Why I never saw it before, I am not sure. Perhaps I subconsciously play the game with her because it allows me to pretend she will always be with me, to ignore the indisputable fact that one day I will no longer have a living parent in my life.

While Mom and I are not terribly close, our personalities polar opposites ninety percent of the time, I am her only daughter. I love her more than I will admit even to myself, and painful tears constrict the back of my throat as I compose this. As angry as her bigoted views make me, as crazy as her blunt and biting criticism drives me, I know she would give up her own life in a heartbeat for her children's benefit. For good or for bad, she is a unique individual, one of those honest-to-goodness characters that make life memorable.

This evening's post was originally intended to be a comparison of older characters in the movies, Brokeback Mountain and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. In the latter film, Levon Helm plays a blind and haggard old rancher who lives miles and miles out in the unforgiving Texas desert southwest near the border. The old rancher is first introduced sitting on a sagging dirty porch, listening to an ancient radio he keeps tuned to a Mexican station.

He tells "Pete" (played by Tommy Lee Jones), that he "don't speak no Spanish", but that he loves the melodious sound of the language. The old man's son has stopped bringing him supplies from nearby Van Horn and he knows that the long absent son has most likely died of cancer; having told his father about his terminal diagnosis a few months earlier.

Pete and a border patrol agent (played by Barry Pepper) are on their way to rebury Pete's friend, Melquiades, in a little village in Mexico just over the border. The old rancher graciously allows the two strangers to water their horses, and shares his noontime meal of cold rice gruel with them.

As Pete and the agent are leaving, Pete asks the old man, more in way of politeness than real concern, if there is anything they can do for him. Very matter-of-factly, he asks Pete if he would just shoot him, that it "would be the best thing". He can't commit suicide as it is against God's laws, but he wants to be released from the slow death of starvation he knows is the undeniable end.
After a brief moment of inscrutable thought, Pete refuses, replying that he cannot go against those same laws either. The pitiful old blind man acceptingly nods his understanding. The scene was poignant and heartbreaking; not easy to watch.

While the old rancher was resigned and accepting of his fate, when her time comes, my mother will never be so pragmatic. Sure to follow the sage words of Dylan Thomas, she will "not go gentle into that good night.” I only hope that her kind of stiff-spined refusal does not rob her of an opportunity to rejoice, to share and accept the loving grace and forgiveness we all need at the close of a lifetime.

Comments

[GoGo]

In a society where elders are seen as elderly instead, I too would have a hard time owning the experience.

[Paul]

Excellent post Pattie !

[Milt]

You do Ronni right proud.

[Claude]

Loved your post! It made MY throat go funny at times.

[kenju]

So very well said, Pattie, and a good lesson for those of us who may be in her shoes soon.

[Millie Garfield]

What a moving post.

You did "good."

[Chancy]

Interesting post. You put me right there with you as you thought about your relationship with your mother.

I have an observation. It seems to me that she IS "aging gracefully" in her own way by refusing to become a stereotype of an "old lady". I say more power to her and her hard headedness.
---------------------------------------
"that fragile exterior is but a wily disguise for a woman who refuses to "age gracefully".

[goldenlucyd]

Such a wonderful post, Pattie. From my perspective both accepting and giving forgiveness are very hard. But in the end, as usual, it seems like giving is much less painful--and humiliating--than receiving. (This is just the way I see things, not some universal truth.) I pray I stay willing to do both.

[Jane]

I could barely breathe by the time I came to the part about your mom's 'disdain' for anything old--what you wrote, including the trip to the hospital, so mirrored my experience with my mother.

[Karen]

Bravo Pattie! Excellent post. Mothers and daughters sometime are polar opposites in personality, but somehow I believe you may find yourself being like your mother. I do not think you will accept the more advanced years sitting down either! You, like your mother it sounds, have too much spunk.

[joared]

Pattie, your words are very emotionally moving:
"...one day, I will no longer have a living parent in my life."

Tears came to my eyes as I recalled that day for me.

[Texas T-bone]

Wonderful post! Of course, I've been a Cowtown Pattie fan for a long time.

I have to say, though, that none of us should wait until the end of our lives for that grace and forgiveness. Having it can make any time of living so much better.

[Joy]

Pattie, this is a TERRIFIC post. Ronni would be proud. You could be talking about MY mother, but she's 87 not 75. So similar. Kudos.

[ml]

You are so wise to appreciate the short time you have left with your mom, while at the same time acknowledging that you've never seen eye-to-eye. This is a rare willingness to embrace ambivalence that I admire.

[Cowtown Pattie]

To all you very nice commentors: THANK YOU!

I suppose I prefer my mother as the feisty soul that she is, but lordy, some days I commit mental matricide on an hourly basis.

My dad always had a way with dealing with her: his favorite affectionate nickname for her included a salty damnation affixed to her given name. I often heard it uttered a dozen times on any given weekend.

[Deejay]

Excellent job of pinch-hitting, Pattie! Got me to thinking about my own mother's final days. I might blog about that sometime, although I try to add a touch of humor to my posts, and in this case it would be difficult.

[Laura Young]

Wonderful post!
I have been in the thick of dealing with my own parents personal smoke and mirrors recently as their denial about health issues have exploded into a flurry of health crises. I go back and forth, accepting them as they are, along with their "whatever happens, happens" outlooks on life, and wanting to take over to save them from themselves.
I found 16 pounds of bacon, 13 pounds of butter and 9 loaves of white bread in my father's freezer while I was at his house taking care of him after his quadruple bypass. His requested first meal was cheese pierogi.
I love him very much but I wanted to shake him a couple times!
Seeing my parents suddenly leap right into health crises and being asked to oversee some of their affairs has made facing the end of their lives a more concrete reality to me. Now, I may have them both for a long time to come, but dealing with a few nuts and bolts estate matters while dealing with the emotions of this time has been quite a ride.
Stay well!
Laura

[Junebugg]

I love your Mom's spirit. I tell everyone that "I may grow old, but I refuse to grow up".

[Whisky Prajer]

Wow - if this is the sort of posting you do as a "guest", I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't invite you to post on my blog, too! Very touching. I thought your mother's perspective on a second marriage was spot-on.

[nina]

Sorry to be so late to the party, but I must agree with everyone that this is a fabulous post. You rock, Miss Pattie (as if there were ever any doubt)!