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Thursday, 09 March 2023

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A moving and beautifully written piece.

One description came to mind : TRUE GRIT.

Very inspiring. Something I learned recently is never have a victim mentality. Much related to “Don’t Complain”.

Back in the early nineties, when almost no one owned a cell phone, my grandfather had a small accident that made him use crutches for a few weeks.

All the family insisted in that if something happened to him he should be able to call for help, so we spent a lot of money on the smallest phone we could find, a huge Motorola with an even bigger antenna.

He reluctantly accepted and immediately recorded a greeting message to the voicemail that said “call me to my land line”, got the phone into a drawer and never touched it again.

He passed away almost ten years ago, never owned a cell phone.

I miss people from that generation. My grandfather was similarly stoic in the face of old age and even terminal illness. He loved to complain, though. He didn't complain about his person problems, no, never, but he would complain about politicians, the neighbours, the price of gasoline and ground beef, and how society was going to hell. I really do miss him, and the others who were a lot like him.

Have a neighbor who is 93 and still farms 1000 acres. Hires help for the heavier lifting but most of it he does himself. He also takes care of the cattle - all Angus these days.

Huh! It occurs to me that my birth was as close in time to the end of the civil War as it is to my age now.

Weird!

The mental photo you have of the two of them is better than any you might have taken with an actual camera. The exposure was perfect, same for focus and composition. Nothing unwanted intruded into the frame. We should all be so good with our actual cameras!

Patrick

Loyle was of a generation made of sterner stuff, that expected less from life, while making the most of what they had. I nursed for a while many years ago in Tasmania in a hospital in Hobart. We had a fellow come in the orthopedics ward I worked on with a fractured hip. He was a farmer aged 91 and lived on his own. The accident had occured on his farm about 80 kilometres out of Hobart. He had been throwing out bales of hay to his sheep from the back of his utility vehicle and had fallen and fractured his neck of femur. On his own, he had dragged himself a kilometre back to his farmhouse and managed to ring the local nursing station who came out and stabilised him and sent him by ambulance to Hobart. He arrived on my ward late at night. The admission interview went like this, "Jack, have you been in a hospital recently?" "No, I've never been in a hospital except for a wound in the war." What medications do you take? "Never take any medications." Do you drink or smoke? "Don't smoke, but every Friday I go to the Returned Services League in town and get a bit drunk, know I shouldn't, but always do." Stupid question I know, but the next question from me made me realise what a different world we live in now. What do you do for exercise Jack? "I work." 91 and tough as nails

Good advice - although hard to follow in current times

At this point I have multiple friends who have spent 3 or more days stuck on the floor in their own homes. I do recommend medic-alert pendants, or at the very least being religious about keeping your phone on you, and also regular check-in calls with old people you know.

That was a brilliant post Mike. Thanks for sharing.

Interesting.

I confess that I complain more than I should. However, every time I visit my rheumatologist (I have arthritis that definitely interferes with doing some things I love to do), I am reminded that I’m happier being me, with my problems, than any of the other people in the waiting room, with their apparent problems.

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