80’s the magic number

My dad just turned 80 years old.  He was a Depression baby born in the winter of 1936.  I felt this milestone birthday needed major celebration.  So I prepared a party for him.  I thought about everything I knew about my dad: poor country boy from rural Oklahoma, classic car enthusiast, auto mechanic, junk yard roamer, electrician, plumber, home builder, repairman, jack of all trades, country music lover, down-home guitarist.  In short, he is the salt of the earth.

 

When I arrived for Christmas, I presented him with huge party balloons of the ‘good time rock ‘n’ roll’ theme: round helium balloons in solid colors of burnt red, black, and teal with one larger balloon shaped like a classic car detailed with flames.  The story goes a long time ago, when my father was a young man, he drove a car detailed to read “The Wild One.”  Presenting the balloon bouquet to him, I said with a smile, “Happy birthday!” and then decided to spill the beans about his surprise birthday party.  His quick response was a commanding “No!”  Mom and I smiled calmly and remarked about how there would be more cake and fun and prizes for us.  His relatives had been invited, so Dad decided to go with the planned occasion that would take place in his home the following afternoon.

 

For fun I created games called “Who Knows Dad?” and “Who Knows 1936?”  Anyone who correctly answered a question got a small gift from a grab bag.  I came up with about fifty questions for both games, most partiers choosing to answer questions about Dad’s life.  The night before, I asked him if he wanted me to read over the questions about him.  [I figured he might think I would include something embarrassing from his past.  No way!]  As I read the first question, “Dad was born on what day of the week,” he looked confused.  He said he had no idea.  I told him an internet search of the year showed he was born on a Sunday.  I went on with the next question: “What was Dad’s nickname on the baseball field?”  He looked even more confused.  He told me he did not know his father’s nickname when he played baseball.  I explained the game was about him, my Dad, not his father.  For a moment he seemed to think he would be put on the spot at the party to answer questions about his life.  I assured him the questions were for the party-goers, not him the Birthday Boy.  Yet I knew given his age, the whole thing might confuse him, maybe stress and upset him, as he initially seemed to me.

 

A few years ago “60 Minutes” aired a segment on the nation’s growing elderly and skyrocketing costs for hospitalization and medical care, most of which may be unnecessary.  A noted geriatric physician wanted to bring home one hard fact: The human body is built to last 80 years.  It doesn’t matter how well we take care of it, 80 is like nature’s expiration date for human life.  If anyone lives longer than that, it is a blessing or luck and maybe genetics.  I paid attention to everything the doctor advised, especially when it came to loved ones who turn 80, when the geriatric physician strongly advised family to have a serious talk.  So now The Talk between parent and child is not about sex but about death and dying and final wishes, specifically Do Not Resuscitate directives in case of end-of-life scenarios.  Since the initial airing of this vital report, I have managed to come across it while watching TV again and again and again.  Still I haven’t had The Talk with my parents.  In fact, when I first told them about seeing this report, they were offended.  They honestly believed the doctor was advising society to do away with anyone over 80 years old instead of help them or heal them but just let them die.

My parents, however, are wise and pragmatic.  They’ve already purchased their cemetery plots, paid for their funerals, and even showed me a picture of their lovely double headstone in pink marble shaped like a heart.  Surely they have made their DNR wishes known to their doctors?

 

As for me, I went ahead and typed up all my final desires and arrangements, knowing life can expire way before reaching age 80.  Once as a topic of discussion during a visit, I told my parents about my end-of-life preparations, hoping to open the door to full disclosure about their wishes … before something happens.  All right, when the time surely comes.  But neither of us was direct.  So the issue remains awkward.

 

Aging and the brain is major research today with already helpful findings, such as dementia is averted and the brain more youthful when the elderly are taken back in time to a favorite era of their younger years.  For my parents that would be the 1950s: of Elvis and hot rods, rockabilly, jukeboxes and burgers and malt shops.  In their mind, the time is full of vitality and color, not faded black-and-white pictures.  The clothes, the music, the fun and fads, home furniture, TV shows and cars can bring back very happy memories—and this can help revitalize the brain.

 

My dad looked at the napkins I chose for his party.  They where white with a specific teal color, the exact blue-green shade of the teal balloon and the teal plates, bowls and dinnerware I purposefully chose for his birthday party.  He was showing the color to a relative while recalling he once had a car that exact color.  I remember it well: a ’55 Chevrolet with whitewall tires.  He’d fix her up every now and then and take us for a ride while we were growing up in the ’70s.  He’d floor the engine on the highway, gleefully passing up modern cars with no pizzazz or distinctive body design.

 

By the end of his birthday party—an event he declared to be his first and last—Dad seemed to have pepped up quite a bit.  The stroll down memory lane, his lane, with numerous and fondly recalled anecdotes from the life he lived his way proved therapeutic.  That’s the reason for an 80th birthday party: to celebrate a life well lived now.

Heart Attack still number one

Like most people, I assumed Carrie Fisher would survive a heart attack.  Given that she was only 60, the constant news watch was evidence to me of a slow news day.  I think the self-deprecating Carrie would have agreed.  Then the next morning, she was gone.  Women and heart attacks are no laughing matter and are dead serious.

 

Women of a certain age, post menopausal, are not only equally susceptible to heart attacks as men but are more likely than men to die from them.  Why do we place this in the back of our minds instead of at the forefront, like men do?  Like we all do when it comes to men and their health?

 

Women’s heart attack symptoms are often different from men, not always the classic left arm numbness and crushing chest pain.  Women’s heart attacks are much more subdued.  Their complaints are more like emotions, vague and hard to describe in physical or medical terms.  A woman’s heart attack can feel like simple indigestion without a thought of anything more serious.  Prior to my mother’s heart attack, she had been feeling ‘anxious’ and ‘off’ and a little ‘queasy.’  Those symptoms could be about anything, even matters of the psyche.

 

Carrie Fisher had a fabulous life, really living several lifetimes.  Hers was marked by fame at birth, unanticipated movie mega-stardom in “Star Wars,” spiraling drug addiction mostly to pain pills and cocaine, partying with celebrities like John Belushi, rehab, and writing semi-autobiographical books—one made into a major Hollywood movie with the great Meryl Streep and legendary Shirley MacLaine acting out the presumed mother-daughter relationship of Carrie Fisher and her mother, Hollywood sweetheart Debbie Reynolds.  Around this time, the real mother-daughter duo did not speak to each other for ten years.  That’s got to wear on the heart, aging it prematurely.  It’s hard to cling to hate and animosity toward the same person, year after year.  Forgiveness and communication allow love to flow, heart to heart.

 

At the heart of Carrie’s chemical makeup, however, was not addiction as much as bipolar disorder.  She talked candidly about possessing an over-fueled mind, one that is constantly ‘on,’ never off even when she was exhausted.  Lack of rest, mental and physical, can age the heart, too.

 

Once mental illness was diagnosed and properly treated, including occasional shock therapy with pills instead of bolts of electricity, her mania calmed and at some point she and her mother made amends—even to the point of residing as next-door neighbors.  Their story is quite poignant, demonstrated by Debbie Reynolds’ sudden death practically at the news of her daughter’s departure from the planet.

 

For the rest of us women of a certain age, Carrie Fisher’s sudden death is a warning to take care of our heart by exercise and diet including medical checkups and cholesterol and blood pressure meds if prescribed.  In retrospect Carrie lived each day as if it were her last, leaving us one final postcard from the edge.