According to a book that has been in my possession for many years, there are 47 synonyms for the death of a person. My purpose here is to add, as unpleasant as it may seem, a 48th definition for the end of life. It will go by the grand and eloquent title of “Expiration by Dribs, Drabs and Occasional Dollops.”
I realize that the readers of these essays are in what is generally called the advancing years and I tentatively apologize for the length of the title to this essay. Mind you, I said that I tentatively wish to consider an apology for the length of the title to this essay. The more I think about the length of the title, it reflects my thoughts and I hereby withdraw my tentative apology. As the current usage of the language goes, it must be said that “It is what it is.” I am not quite certain what the definition of “it” is. But until I see Bill Clinton, I will let my statement stand.
So this is an essay about the end of life which some would view as a somber subject. I take an opposing view and in this essay I will try to add a little smile to the grimness that accompanies an essay on the expiration of life. I take this liberty to inject a bit of humor because the life I am speaking of is my own. One of my former employers, Carl Schroth, would have called it “Yours Truly.” Schroth is the man who put a piece of plywood in the front of his pants to alleviate a hernia. When he waited on customers, he would thunk his pants and he would say, usually to younger girls, “How about them apples?” I am not in Carl Schroth’s league. My thoughts will be more pedestrian.
For many years, there have been four pieces of exercise equipment which have occupied a prominent place in our basement gymnasium. There is the Schwinn stationery bicycle. Then there is a treadmill, a rowing machine, and finally, an upper body ergometer. My wife keeps records about our performance and, as we have progressed over the years, my performance has steadily gone downhill. This is not to say that there is cause for alarm. It is a function, primarily, of the aging process. Whereas on the treadmill I used to do 30 minutes at a 10% incline, I am now reduced to ten minutes, if I am lucky, at a 1% incline. The pessimist will say, “What a terrible comedown!” But the optimist will say that the old man is still exercising. I elect to go with the optimist.
The fact is that this decline didn’t happen all at once. It happened over a period of years, which gives me some hope that I may string it out for some time to come. But that last thought is highly debatable.
But by any measurable means, my performance on the exercise machines has declined steadily over the years. This is what I mean when I use the title “in dribs and drabs.”
As a matter of fact, about every 16 months I wind up in a hospital bed at Overlook Hospital. The most recent occurrence was a subdural hematoma, which in common parlance would be blood on the brain. That episode was an eleven-day affair and set me back in my quest to outdo my fellow exercisers by perhaps another six weeks.
As a matter of fact, I have been a patron of the Summit Medical Group for a good number of years. They have specialists in every field, ranging from the scalp on the head to podiatry. Recently, after an attack of arthritis, I presented myself to the bone specialist, who is commonly called an orthopedic surgeon. He took one look at me and I pointed to where it hurt. The physician more or less told me to “Get out of here,” because I was pointing to a spot on my back and he did not practice back repair.
In my most recent episode, I got tangled up in the kitchen when the alarm went off for the oven overheating, and wound up falling and hitting Miss Chicka’s refrigerator.
Without going through all of my trials and tribulations, as time has gone on there have been more illnesses and disabilities which have caused hospitalizations. The title to this essay about occasional dollops refers to hospitalizations.
In the final analysis, the longer my life is preserved, the more ailments I seem to contract. Now look at it this way. The Bible says something to the effect that 60 years is an appropriate span of life for the normal human being. It goes on to say that in some cases the span may be increased to the 70th year. In very rare cases, the Bible holds that there could be an 80th year. There should be no confusion between the Summit Medical Group and whoever controls the length of life’s span.
But significantly, as the Medical Group has worked to expand my life, certain disabilities present themselves. For example, if I had been allowed to expire in my 82nd year, blindness would have been avoided. Similarly, if I had had the decency to expire in my 88th year, there would have been no need to take me to the hospital for the fall which resulted in blood on the brain.
It all comes down to something like this. A great and good friend, Tom Scandlyn, is a philosopher originally from Harriman, Tennessee and now a resident of Madison,New Jersey. Tom is of my age group and, when asked how he feels, he has said, “It gets no easier.” He says that the list of things that he can do continues to get shorter. And I suppose that performing those tasks takes longer and longer. So dying by dribs, drabs, and dollops is closely related to the thought that it gets no easier.
It had been my thought over the years that as the expiration of life approached, there would be a miracle and I would go away quickly. I believe that the Bible describes this as “flying away.” My neighbor, who was 30 years my junior, had a heart-related incident that took him away at the tender age of 55. I wasn’t ready to go when my age reached 55 but taking one thing with another, the quick exit would seem to have its merits. But that is not for me to decide, unfortunately.
What is left here is that as I approach my 89th year, I am dying slowly but surely by dribs, drabs, and dollops. I wish it were otherwise but that is not in my hands. So I will continue to take my exercise because it prolongs the quality of life. I will continue to go the Summit Medical Group for the very same reason. What this all boils down to is that I am my own worst enemy. The longer I postpone the inevitable end, the more illnesses I will acquire. I have no intention of ending my life prematurely.
In any case, no reputable gun dealer would sell me a pistol and if I wished to step in front of a train, somebody would have to drive me to the train station and lead me to a spot between the rails. So ending my life prematurely is out of the question. And I am therefore left with the thought that life will disappear by dribs, drabs and dollops. In the meantime, I am of good cheer and I join the rest of my aged friends in waiting for the end.
E. E. CARR
July 9, 2011
Essay 562
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Kevin’s commentary: More on falling here and here. More on ageing in the age category. It is sad, but it occurs to me that there are probably weeks where Pop exercises more than I do. He certainly exercises more than my father, who is thirty years his junior. This is all to say that Pop is doing pretty darn well, considering the circumstances. Still though, essays like this which end on the sentiment of just waiting for death are always extremely sobering. I wish this were not his outlook but who am I to tell him how he is supposed to feel. And true to his promise, the essay made me grin, so I guess he’s doing exactly what he set off to.