So many thanks for life’s joys
My heart is working well, which is surprising considering it is overflowing with gratitude for all the friends and family who have comforted me these past few months. Thanks to my daughter Jenny’s quick thinking and courage, I survived my sudden cardiac event and spent several weeks in the hospital.
I feel like the comedian who says, “But wait; there’s more,” because after returning from the hospital, I contracted pneumonia and was back in the hospital for another week.
I loved the faces of the nurses when they saw me again, and I could hear them talking about the “woman who almost died.” I have nothing but the highest praise for the staff at Sacred Heart Medical Center. Every single person I encountered was compassionate, skilled, and dedicated to my recovery. After this last hospital stay, I have been recuperating at home with the skilled care of the Visiting Nurse Association, whom I also admire greatly.
These weeks in a healing setting gave me time to reflect on my life. I came to the deep conviction that I am a relatively healthy 73-year-old woman who has had some health problems. I am not an invalid. It would be very easy for me to “fold my tent” and let others care for me. I have seen that happen to some older people because it is “an easier, softer way.” But once you leave the race, it is very hard to get back in. We each have the power to identify ourselves; others may help, but in the end, it is our self-identification that counts.
I have a dear friend, Hilda Hill, in Mississippi, who called me recently to share what a dear friend had said to her: “Don’t let anyone steal the joy from your life.” So that is my goal. I wanted to give you an update. But this is the last column about my health; it’s beginning to bore even me!
New publications for seniors
The revised issue “The Directory for Seniors” (formerly “Mature Matters”), edited by John and Gail Goeller, is still at the top of the list as a vital resource.
On a lighter note: Nora Ephron’s new book, “I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman,” is a collection of essays both witty and wise. She describes herself as a “mouse potato,” i.e., someone who’s as connected to her computer as couch potatoes are to their television sets.
One of the most frequently asked questions from readers concerns my inclusion of poetry in each column. I found a perfect answer in a statement by Christian Wisman, editor of “Poetry Magazine.”
“Let us remember … that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.”
Sometimes the poets who move us are anonymous as in this poem in “The Norton Introduction to Literature,” called “The Silver Swan:”
“The silver swan, who living had no note.
“When death approached, unlocked her silent throat; Leaning her breast against the reedy shore, Thus sang her first and last, and sung no more; ‘Farewell, all joys; Oh death come close mine eyes; More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.’ “