The Ghosts of Christmas Yet to Come

 

 

-----------------------------

I posted the above to Facebook. I thought those who know me well would find it funny because I'm rather well known for my resistance to change. Most who responded got it. Their comments made me smile. But the one from my Cousin Rose annoyed the living shit out of me.

Be a good Christian and do 1 or 2. 

Oh, for fuck's sake. It was a JOKE! And it makes me wonder where Rose buys her cards.

Her comment burrowed so deep under my skin because of what it represents. As she ages – and Rose just turned 78 – she's more difficult for me to interact with. She picks at me constantly because I do nothing right. (My purse is too big. I worry too much about my friends. I drink at lunch.* I chose a Medicare supplement plan and not a Medicare advantage plan. I'd rather watch old musicals than Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. I could go on, but I'd start screaming.)

When I was 16 and she was 27, Rose was my goddess. My role model. My champion. I couldn't spend enough time with her. Now I avoid it. I maintain our relationship but I do it online or through the mail.

This makes me sad. I know Rose loves me. When she's not ragging on me, she can be enormously thoughtful. For example, for Christmas she made a $50 donation in my name to The Anthony Rizzo Family Foundation. It was so sweet, so perfectly Christmas-y, it made me cry.

Plus she's one of only two people left on the planet who held me as a baby. That's important. I honor that. So it upsets me that she's changing like this. 

She's not the only one. My friend Kathy, also 78, is in such cognitive decline that we haven't communicated for more than a year. Both her phone and her laptop now perplex her. I don't miss her. The last few years of our friendship were difficult and, I suspect, brought me more agita than they brought her pleasure. I doubt she misses me, or even remembers me anymore.

But wait! There's more! Bonnie died. She was a staple in our movie group, and it was hard for me to interact with her because she always lost the thread of every movie. But she was one of us and truly loved classic films, even the ones she didn't understand. I looked up her obit, hoping to find a charity listed that our group could contribute to in lieu of flowers. I was shocked by what I found. Bonnie, who died one day shy of her 74th birthday, had a master's and worked her way through school as one of Illinois Bell's only female telephone installers. She went on to teach journalism at one of Chicago's best colleges. Gloria Steinem once crashed in her apartment. I wish I'd known that woman, instead of the one who got confused by Little Women. But age robbed her of her energy and concentration.

I'm 67. What do my 70s hold? Will I be humorless and joyless, like Rose? Will my skull be filled with oatmeal, like Kathy's? Will people be shocked that I once had it going on, as I was shocked about Bonnie?

I don't want this to be happening. I hate change. I've had enough change already.

 

*I only have three drinks/week. I don't see how it matters if I consume them at noon or after six. I have explained this to her. She doesn't agree.