Just outside the little hamlet of Simms, I passed two sets of farm buildings defined by L-shaped rows of gigantic old cottonwoods. Splintered, raggedy, surrounded by tumbles of fallen branches. But trying their best to stand tall and straight in yesterday’s incomparable sunshine and blue sky. Old soldiers. Far beyond any resuscitation or grooming. Reminders of the homesteading heyday in which they were planted with hope and purpose. Meant to blunt the fury of west winds that would harass the farmyards—homes and sheds newly built. Chickens and cows and equipment sheltered there. Not the conventional windbreak, but more stately than scrubby Russian olive. Planted with the gravy of ground water in this Sun River Valley. Trees guaranteed to grow fast. But—of little consequence to those early settlers—also guaranteed a short life. Maybe 70 years—on the outside maybe 200.
My heart hurt for their dying dignity and for the hard choices left to those farmsteads’ current inhabitants. Who would have the time or money or inclination to perform the euthanasia needed to “tidy” up the landscape? Plant new trees? Were the houses rentals now—owned by an out-of-state rancher or at least a well-to-do family living in a big new home on a bluff nearby—to revel in the astounding views? Were the buildings even still occupied?
I was driving this astonishingly beautiful landscape between the Front and the Missouri River on my way to Fairfield. Where three of my four Montana grandchildren were playing sports: small fry basketball and football. Amanda coached the fifth graders and celebrated her birthday. Matt there as dad and superintendent. Every part of the day sang. How is it that the 12, 11, and 10 year-olds all wear shoes several sizes larger than mine and are utterly at home in all the rules and schedulings of a bustling tournament? How is it that Amanda has acquired the grace and grit and gumption to coach? How is it that Matt thrives in a soup of knife-edge decisions in a small, watching town? When did my hair and body reveal that I qualified for the senior discount? Why the hell did I try to sit on the ground with my new knees or forget to bring a lawn chair like the other grandparents? It was a marvelous day.
Made all the richer by the landscape of my drive. Rich in rock outcrops, mysterious flat-topped buttes, long, elegant slopes of gold grass—all framed by the rising wall of Rocky Mountain peaks to the west.
And quickened, enlivened by the opportunity to THINK as those lovely empty miles sped by. About the cottonwoods. About being old. And about the old people I see when I go for my macular degeneration shots. I’d been struggling with an essay about them. So, yup, there’s a connection.
Nine years ago, I was diagnosed with macular degeneration. I knew something was wrong when the titles of books on bottom library shelves disappeared and when the text I was reading began to wiggle up and down. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) was a curse that shadowed both my parents in their last years. It’s a reality that dims and limits life for a full third of all people over 75.
I am lucky. Many of us with “wet” AMD realize some benefit from injections that slow the growth of unneeded blood vessels at the back of our eyes. We rarely retrieve our original vision but can enjoy a reprieve from AMD’s progression.
Which means that every few weeks I’m at Dr. Berbos’s office on “injection day”–always Thursdays. Always arriving to an absolutely packed waiting room. Always there for at least two hours.
The procedure itself is not nearly as gruesome as it sounds. My eyes are numb and blurry by the time Dr. Berbos comes close with a needle. As he intones each time, I experience “a pinch and swirlies.” He’s exactly right. Sometimes my eye fusses for 24 hours; more often just until I sleep.
The most fascinating and horrifying part of injection days for me is the inevitable opportunity to consider aging. In the waiting room, we are a panoply old people in all variations and oddities and demeanors. A bizarre crew. Though I bring my Kindle along, I spend many of those 100 minutes crafting stories and writing judgments in my head.
There are the women determined to defy age: over-rouged cheeks, gold ballet flats, white slacks, spangly tops, dangly earrings. There are always a host of men in sweat pants or baggy jeans held up by suspenders. Unshaven, not very clean or put together. Many of whom try to flirt with the young receptionists. Or at least make repeat trips to the big bowl of candy on the check-out counter. There are salt-of-the-earth women in polyester slacks and running shoes and big ol’ purses. There are folks limping into their appointments on walkers and some in wheelchairs who struggle with every transfer to the exam chairs. I find the likely League of Women Voters females in tidy blazers or vests with matching pants. There are the occasional cowboyesque guys in well-fitting ironed jeans, clean shirts, good leather belts, recent haircuts and cell phones carried in a “holster” where once western gentlemen kept a Leatherman.
We are there in ones, but often twos—a shaky set of hands and legs guiding even shakier ones back to the exam rooms. Some of us are with disgruntled care givers. Some are helping a spouse—with varying degrees of attentiveness and warmth. Some sit extra long in the lobby waiting for the assisted living van to fetch them home. Like others, I sit where I have a prayer of hearing the techs call my name. Most have cell phones. A couple people like me have their Kindles handy; the office isn’t long on magazines. So a lot of us—wait.
We are mostly, in short, those old cottonwoods. Whatever winds we once buffeted—at a profession, raising a family, building houses, teaching students—we now have lost that purpose. We are still standing—however ruined, tattered, graceless, graceful, silhouetted against the skies of our community and family and this era. We mark a time and its peculiarities and stories. Like the cottonwoods, we no longer measure ourselves by the vibrancy and glory we may once have had. Like the cottonwoods, we are old soldiers. Surrounded metaphorically by fallen limbs—the body parts and the skills and abilities that were once part of us.
For a good while, I wanted to write an essay that spoofed—honestly even ridiculed—the caricatures of aging that I see in the waiting room. We aren’t just a motley crew; we are—by society’s standards—mostly unattractive, embarrassing. We make odd choices in dress. We try too hard or not enough to be young or young-old. The toll that illness and infirmity and poverty and weariness take shows itself clearly. Like the cottonwoods, we have survived—gale force winds and drought years. Neglect and change.
Even as I scrutinize and wince about the OTHERS who wait for eye injections, I’m ONE OF THEM. I could lose weight. I have to pause a minute when I stand up. I’m sure as shit judgmental. And I don’t know how to dress to be comfortable AND fashionable. In any toss-up, I head toward comfort. And you have to speak into my right ear or I may ignore you. I/we—the old folks—live a hundred compromises every day in order to get by.
Those old cottonwoods still caught my eye as I drove past and caused my heart to celebrate and ache. And in all our peculiarities and struggles and halting homeliness, us old folks are now serving the same purpose. We are living—–as best we can. Given our commitment to keeping our eyes as trustworthy as possible, we’ve not given up. We still have a place in the landscape that surrounds us. In my case—for Amanda and Matt and those fascinating grandkids. For friends, younger ones—as well as for contemporaries dealing with their own endurances. We are coming to the end of our lives, as do all living things. We are at once unique and so much like those cottonwoods–doing the best we can in these last years.
So I wish for us all the alchemy of gorgeous fall days and someone in our lives who remembers the purposes for which we lived. And the courage it takes still to stand tall, or at least stand up in this time in our lives. ©
