Transition By Dr. Juan Harrison

I am not complaining.  Just stating an observation.  Used to the fridge was covered in ball schedules and a calendar full of sports and school activities penciled in to fill up our days and nights.  These days we still have a few of those up there for the grands’ activities  worked in among all those little white rectangular cards stuck under magnets and beginning with the word “Dr.”

Where did the time go.  We used to marvel at my wife’s folks’ ice box door covered in 14 appointments.  I jokingly accused them of intentionally scheduling doctor appointments in Paris so that they could eat at the Fish Fry or in Longview for good old Cajun food at Johnny Cace’s.  I still think I was right.  Only now seems like it’s our turn.  In recent years as I learned I’d have to make that run to Texas Oncology for 45 trips, we lay there in bed trying to figure out where we’d eat each day there and how often we could eat at my friend Gary’s Fish Fry next door to the Cancer Center.

I’m an optimist.  Turn lemons into lemonade.  Life ain’t what happens to you.  It’s how you handle it. I half-jokingly said earlier when my mother-in-law passed a few years ago that men sometimes grieve differently as I took my father-in-law out each Wednesday night for his favorite fried quail at Big Smith’s for the first year after she passed.

Making that transition into recliners and chairs that lift you up like your elders used to occupy ain’t necessarily a whole lot of fun.  It’s about this time as you see yourself becoming Grandpa McCoy and Granny Clampett that you have to get a whole new mindset.  Before, life was pretty much okay with a few aches and pains.  Then slowly and surely, they kept hanging around.  Do you give in and give up or do you grit your teeth if you remember to put them in and throw on the hand brake.

Senior sainthood ain’t all it’s cracked up to be in all the medical and hearing aid commercials on TV.  The whistles and red lights are starting to come on telling you you’re stepping into a whole new world.  Pain, sleep issues, new ailments come to visit and forget to leave.  The battle is on.  Give in, give up, or give em fits.  Dig in and fight back.  They ain’t taking no prisoners.  Pop em in the mouth.  Kick em in the tush.  Don’t even think of giving in.  Keep dragging that old body to church and the grandbaby’s games as long as you can.  Get all the juice from your Juicy Fruit gum.  Hopefully you’re still swinging that cane or crutch at the Boogie Man when the Pearly Gates call.

 By Dr. Juan Harrison