OWL-DRAGON

Nursing Home and Bodies

Tuesdays are track night, but first I stop at the nursing home. For the past couple of years my Aunt Sarah has been a resident of Haverford Nursing Home. Her sister my Aunt Margaret, visits her everyday. I pick Aunt Peg up on my way home to take her home. It can be very tedious. Haverford appears to be a well run nursing home. The residents are clean and all seem well cared for. But still, what a depressing place. Yesterday was a resident’s birthday. Elsie was ninety years old. Several people wished her many more years. Elsie said, “I certainly hope not.” There are two types in the nursing home – residents in some stage of dementia and those still sharp but with some physical disability that makes it impossible to live on their own. Elsie is in the latter category and for residents like her the nursing home must be especially difficult. Imagine having a roommate not of your choosing, of having no privacy, of never being able to be alone, of not being able to go wherever, whenever. Sound like another institution. Yet these have done nothing but to get old.

Tonight at the run we were talking about races and I mentioned I had done three marathons this year. You’re really working that body someone said. Yes, indeed working and running, running from that nursing home. It may be inevitable but until then I will rejoice in everyday and every footstep. And I will work that body.