Of Cats, and Life Journeys

"All diseases run into one:  old age. "   Ralph Waldo Emerson

I met a fellow cat lover at the nursing home yesterday morning.   Her name is Mrs. Hopkins.

The old lady sat in a wheelchair in the corridor, stroking a stuffed animal  - a gray cat -  that lay in her lap. 

“Hey!”, she exclaimed as I walked by.

“Hey!”,  I said, and stopped walking, smiling at her. 

Mrs. Hopkins eyed me for a moment, sizing me up while still stroking the stuffed cat, then asked, “How much did you say you wanted for your car?”

I explained to her that my car wasn’t for sale, but that I really liked her cat, at which point she smiled broadly and offered it to me to pet.  She loved cats, too, she said.  I told her about my cats, Lily and Alice, and told her I would love to bring them for her to see, but unfortunately they weren’t as calm as her cat and I’d hate for them to run amok in the nursing home.  She grinned at me and chuckled, then returned to petting her stuffed cat, once again lost in her own memories. 

I was in the nursing home because my stepfather moved there this past Monday evening.  January has gone by in a blur of his hospital stay and now, the move to the nursing home.   He was admitted to the hospital on January 10^th with a severe case of pneumonia.  After the first night in the hospital, he deteriorated into a state of dementia from which he will likely never recover.   He’s been battling COPD and even a bout with cancer the last several years.  Last fall, we noticed he had started to have a little trouble recalling words in the middle of a sentence and had begun to repeat himself somewhat.  At the hospital, he rapidly lost his ability to remember and even for a time was unable to feed or do much of anything for himself, although he is improving some and able to feed himself now at the nursing home.   One of the doctors said that he’s gone through stages of dementia in two weeks that many people take months or even years to reach.   

It’s been very hard for us to watch this happen to this man who could do anything from fix the brakes on a car to roofing a house.  He has always treated me and my children as his own, and he’s helped me more times than I can count with numerous things.   He even kept the used Plymouth I bought when I was single running as long as he could, joking that “one day it’s just going to lay down and die”.  Which, of course, it eventually did. 

Needless to say, it’s been devastating for our family; at the moment we’re just taking it day at a time.  One very important thing this has reminded me of is that you never really know, from one moment to the next, what life is going to hand you.  That’s why it’s so very important to appreciate every moment.  Money cannot buy your health, nor can it buy your mind back, or your youth, once it’s gone.  

I think about that as I walk the halls of the nursing home.  A clean, bright, place, with a kind staff.  Much better than some of the ones I’ve entered in the past, thank goodness.  But still, it is what it is.  I smile and speak to the residents as I walk past, and I wonder what they were like when they were young, and middle-aged.  I wonder what their hopes and dreams and worries were, and how many times, when they were young, they hurried past an old person without speaking or even acknowledging them, not thinking that they themselves would be there one day.  Aging is something that only death will stop.  So make the most of your time, no matter how young - or old - you are.  If you woke up and were able to move, and think, and recognize and communicate with those around you as you go about your normal day,  be grateful, and be kind to others along your journey.  For we are all really on the same journey, just at different stages. 

I'm trying to make something positive come out of something negative, though.  I saw a dog at the nursing home on Friday and I'm going to check next week and see if they have an animal therapy program.  I would love for Mrs. Hopkins to be able to pet and cuddle a real cat now and then.  I'm sure she would love that.