Laughing at Yourself, Understanding and Motivation

I continued my workouts, exercises and my walks with mom and the dogs during the day. In the evening, I worked on Legos and silly putty to try to work on my hand mobility. I had found a little kitten in our woods before this had all happened and she was still hanging around, so I went out to the barn and started building a small outdoor cat house, so she had a safe place to sleep. It was my first attempt at woodworking since the stroke. It was a hard sell, and I was watched very closely by Deb and Zach. At times they hovered over me like I was a little kid; it kind of pissed me off, not only was everything harder than it used to be, but now I had to ask permission to use my tools. I wasn’t used to asking for help. It was still cool having Zach help me with a project, but I just wasn’t ready to hand over the reins yet; Zach was ready, but I wasn’t.

 As I’ve gotten older and have watched my parents and grandparents navigate getting older, moving toward dreaded old age (anything over 80); I’ve watched the gradual decline of abilities and how they dealt with it. To be honest, my family has been a great example of growing old gracefully. My grandparents on both sides were able to adjust to old age with grace in their own ways. My dad’s parents were successful, hardworking business owners that used their savings wisely and were able to retire on their terms; they lived and vacationed where and how they wanted. Never extravagant but very comfortable. The true American dream.  My mother’s parents were basically second-generation homesteaders in eastern Montana; they took a modest property and turned it into a much larger farm and ranch that focused on thoroughbred and quarter horses. As they got older, they left the ranch to their oldest son and took their love of horses to the racetracks. They continued that lifestyle until their early 80s before retiring to a house in town in 2000.  They were inducted into the Montana Horseracing Hall of Fame in that same year, and in 2008 were inducted into The Quarter Horse Breeder’s Hall of Fame.  As I said, they adjusted to old age in their own ways. My dad’s parents aged with grace and understanding, my mom’s parents aged with grace, but also defiance. They refused to get old and lived much the same way at 80 as they had in their 30s. My grandma cleaned stalls and helped with the horse chores as well as all the house chores. My grandfather was still riding and exercising horses around the track, in an exercise saddle when he was 80.  Pure refusal to get old; even though it might have taken longer, they could and did outwork many a 30-year-old.  

When I was 21, I took dad, who was almost 54, fishing back to the same back country lake this story started with. It was a 17-mile hike round trip in the mountains. The walk in was easier, short, gradual climbs with long, steep downhill sections.  The fishing was wonderful and the day was great. This was just a few weeks before I got married and was a lasting memory for both dad and I. Dad did great on the trip into the lake and matched me step for step, but on the trip back he started to get further behind, because now it was mostly uphill. I would stop and wait but my impatience would win out, and I would leave him far behind at times. I waited at the last junction where the trail split at a forest service short cut. You could take the switchbacks that were a gradual 3 and half mile walk to the top of the mountain or take the short cut, an insanely steep, straight up hike for a mile. For me, there was only one choice, straight up. Dad caught up to me, and I asked him if he was ready for the climb out and he just smiled and kept walking on the switchbacks at his slow but steady pace. I laughed, took a deep breath and charged up the shortcut. After climbing a quarter of a mile up I stopped to rest at the edge of one of the switchbacks; I could see dad way down the path and decided to wait for him. When got there, I tried to convince him that he could take the short cut with me and that it would be faster. I’ll never forget what he said, “I’m sure I could, but I could also have a heart attack. The deal with getting older is that you got to know your limits, you can still do everything you could do when you were young; you just can’t be stupid, you have got to find your own pace.”   Dad took a deep breath, wished me luck and continued up the switchbacks. I continued my race straight up to the top and when I got there, I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack. After resting and catching in my breath, dad eventually came walking to the top with a big smile on his face and the appearance of accomplishment. That’s how dad was learning to adjust to getting older.

I tell these stories to make a point. Dad, and my grandparents had years to figure it out. I did not, it was thrust upon me quickly. I’ve said this before, but to me it felt like I went from hero to zero in 4.3 seconds. I had been aging well; I was strong, heathy and as capable as I ever had been when I turned 52, but less than a month later I felt like and had the capability of an 85-year-old man. So, having my son tell me what I could do and what I couldn’t do, though understandable, was very frustrating.

I’m writing this because I know my case is not the exception, events like this happen to many people throughout their lives all the time and it sucks. What can you do about it? Not much, just grit your teeth and do your best.  In my case, I knew Zach was looking out for me, and I love that about him, so I did my best to grit my teeth and appreciate his help. I also had the belief that I wouldn’t have made it if God did think I could handle it. For me I tried to find the humor in it and things to motivate me to get back to normal life.  

I remember one Saturday, Deb was making breakfast and I had just woken up and had come out to the kitchen; I was still in my underwear. Deb was standing in front of the sink looking out the window, she looked at me and said, “You better go see what your dog is doing, I think she is messing with a snake”.  I looked out the back door and Red was fighting a big dark snake that was striking at her. I slipped on my slippers, put on my glasses and grabbed my cane as I rushed outside, not giving much thought that I was only in my underwear. Red and the snake had moved up the hill in our back yard and by the time I had got there Red had ended the fight with one quick bike to the snake’s head. I was relieved to see that it was a non-venomous snake. As I was trying to get it away from Red, I could hear a car coming down the road fast. Realizing I was still in my underwear and trying not to scare the neighbors, I turned to run back to the house. My first two or three strides were good, but I was not quite ready to be running downhill. My toe caught the ground and I started to stumble. Desperately trying to get out of sight of the road, I continued to run and stumble until it turned into a superman lunge across the backyard hitting the ground hard, busting my glasses, scraping my knees and bruising my ego. As I got back to my feet, I brushed off my knees and picked up my glasses. Now, for a once powerful running back this hurt my ego a little, but all I could do was imagine what the driver in the car must had seen, an old funny-looking white guy in his underwear trying to run with a cane and doing a giant bellyflop in his back yard. Man, that must have been a sight. As I did my walk of shame back to the house I started to giggle to myself, and when I walked into the house holding my broken glasses, I asked Deb, “Did you see that?” She turned and looked at me with a slight grin trying not to laugh and said, “Nope, I didn’t see a thing.” We just looked at each other for a second and belly laughed for quite a while. The thing is, scrapes heal and so do bruised egos, laugh and get over it.  Damnit, pick up your knees and put some clothes on Dressler. Geeze.

A lot of times motivation comes to you. Shortly after finishing the cat house, which turned out good, Deb came home from school and said some friends/colleagues wanted to have a walk/run benefit for us and another family that had hard times. She said they would have an auction and a mile run/walk. I asked when and she said it would be in about a month. I said, I should be able to walk a mile in a month. Deb said no, it’s a benefit, you don’t have to walk in it. Oh, but I did. There was no way there was going to be a walk/run benefit on our behalf that I couldn’t participate in. Walking for a mile instantly became my new goal. The old track coach in me was activated. I started forming a training strategy in my head. At that point, it was on, I had to up my game.