The face of life - I was young, strong, full of dreams and ambitions. After years of work I finally realized my materialistic dream of owning a mansion, a Mercedes, jewelry, furs and trendy clothes. I was concentrating entirely on my career. I wanted to build more and more. I loved to see things grow around me. I mingled with all social classes from the lowest to the highest. My life was a non ending learning journey. I had become too comfortable in my life and over confident. Bang! in one second my security was shattered. I was hit from behind from a distracted driver. As time went on my strength start fading. Had to stop working unable to control my body motions. Pain set in. All my ambitions ebbed away slowly. The whole meaning of my life changed. My face marred forever by the right eye removal. I had to fight my emotions to accept my NEW self. I fought it with all my might. I adopted a large pair of glasses to cover my disfiguration. I realized my family had a very hard time accepting the NEW ME.
My view of life changed immensely. I noticed my attention was diverting towards the beauty of nature instead of my material things. I enjoyed sitting outside watching the birds, the squirrels, the ants carrying grains bigger than their body.
The NEW ME re-awakened the child in me. Everything was nice. I sang, I danced in the kitchen by myself to the tune of the old songs. Life had a totally different meaning. I never thought "God why me!" I was thankful that I could still see with the eye I had left.
Life went on. My husband and I aged together in grace. We did less and less as the years went by. We got into the golden age and we began to be concerned about our future. We talked about it a lot. Our family is far away and we cannot count on it. Our friends were all into the golden years as we were. Suddenly we realized that all our life we worked to accomplish, be honest, respect and work hard in the hope to have a nice relaxing old age. NOT SO. The more age advances the less people know you. You seem to exist only for the people who can gain to help you.
My husband is a WWII Veteran. Wounded during the war he was given 60% disability. After 4 year battle and a long trail of paper work we were able to increase his disability to 80%. He went to Veteran's hospital to see a dentist and was denied the visit because he did not have UNEMPLOYABILITY. We had to laugh at it. The man is 84 years old, went through a series of surgeries, has a metal knee, had a triple by-pass and is totally unstable on his feet but he did not have unamployability. Start another trail of paperwork.
He fell coming out of a restaurant. He ended up with a CFS leak (fluid on the brain) he had to go through a hydrocephalus surgery to drain the fluid out of his brain. After the surgery he lost control of his bladder, so now I am very busy and have to keep the washer running all the time.
Finally got a phone call that he was accepted at the Bill Nichels nursing home for veterans in Alexander City. I went with a friend to fill the proper paperwork for his future admission.
Life is changing face for us. It is adorning us with new decisions, new worries and new readjustments. Life is a good teacher and knows how to make people understand the real meaning of living. Old age is wisdom, the understanding of what is true, right or lasting. Lore is the best teacher.
I am close to my golden years now and my generation treasured the teaching of the elderly and accepted their ways and their advice, even though against our own will at times. We learned to take care of our things, for we did not have many. We learned to fix, mend, build, weave and all the necessary crafts for survival.
We grew knowing all aspects of life including joy, pain, suffering, life and death. We were part of nature and lived by the laws of nature. We cared for the smallest things in our possession. We learned to respect ourselves in order to respect other. For us work was play. In the country the older people would dare us to climb fruit trees to reap the fruits from the tallest limbs. We were part of a family and felt like we belonged there. Grand mother always preached to me: "Remember the only think you can count on is your own blood family, which is grandparents and parents. They are your roots. Only with strong roots trees grow strong and tall". I always wanted to be strong and tall and thank God I feel I am for I can face myself and others and I am able to cope with any adversity. All my strength comes from my strong roots and positive teaching about right and wrong.
I tried to pass this knowledge to my own child but times had changed. Progress interfered with sanity. Through television, fashion, books and music a generation of cold people was created. Love was shown through gestures and care in the past. Now love is only an abused word on everybody's mouth. A meaningless word. Without love and care and strong roots nobody belongs. We are all alone. Progress has divided us to capture our younger generation. Has changed real love feelings into a simple word. Nobody belongs yet the young one seek to belong, that is why they join different gangs.
We were thought we are all special and everyone of us has a different natural gift to share with others. Now they are thought we are all the same and there are no differences amongst us.
I see the differences. I can still see the young eager to know and learn and the one waiting to be fed like a bird in the nest. I love to share my knowledge but it is now considered passé. I wanted to teach how to make things and be creative. Why make anything when it's cheaper to buy and then throw it away. My generation never discarded anything, we always find a different use for some that was wore out or broken. The creativity of yesterday is what brought us to today. Individuality makes a person. Every one of us is an individual which differs from others. We need to go back to the old days and accept our differences, learn from our differences and share our differences. We need to care for ourselves first and respect ourselves first in order to care and respect others. All the good teaching starts at home and is passed on from home. Our roots start at home and we need to keep them healthy from the start.