I don't expect them to find anything. My grandmother has a constitution like a mac truck in her tiny five foot nothing frame and her diagnosis is almost certainly "You're old". The problem is, she really can't quite be trusted to take decent care of herself anymore.
Mind you, no one else can be trusted either. Who the hell are my mother and aunt with their weight problems and personal stubborn quirks to yell at my grandma for eating sugary junk and never doing any of the things she's supposed to? If she wants to go out in a donut laden blaze of glory, I say who's to tell her no? She's still not fat. The thing is, she can't live forever, and of course everyone is trying to prolong her life or at least preserve the quality of it. Eating junk and forgetting to take her meds both shorten her life and make it uncomfortable.
What I can't square with myself is whether everyone is within their rights to try and force her into assisted living or whether they should all just back off and let her live and die exactly the way she wants to.
It's funny. My grandmother is dying. My company is none too stable. My husband's company is even worse. We're about to have a kid and turn our lives upside down. Can someone explain to me why I feel so serene and alls-right-with-the-world?
Posted by karen at August 22, 2002 12:00 AM