Elderly Hell

Elderly Hell

Lived my life as best I could. 

What more can a human do?

Born into poverty and illiteracy, a child of short attention span before anyone knew what it was. Parents embarrassed by my loquacious personality, and soon enough they beat it out of me. Had a high IQ, did me no good.  Unloved, unwanted then.

Life has come full circle and now I am a woman heavy with years, still unloved and unwanted.  I am on disability and a burden to society.  My children have ostracized me because I made a bad choice in a man - they have not one bit of understanding or forgiveness.

Worked hard all my life.  From child to woman to this drying husk of nothingness, I worked.  Father took me out of school in my junior year so I could work and make myself useful.  I guess an educated woman isn’t useful - go figure.  That didn’t stop me.  I read everything, lived in the library.   Taught myself all the things I wanted to know, and haven’t stopped yet.

All through their school years, my children saw me as an outing escort,  PTA mom, cookie baker, maker of projects.  They have forgotten that.  Forgotten that their father would have nothing to do with them.  Wanted only to watch television and smoke.  He died recently of stomach cancer and my son came to finalize things.  I called him at his father’s and asked him to come to see me.  He said he would have to think about that. He didn’t come.

His wife says I abandoned him when he was seventeen years old.   That isn’t true at all.  He hit me and abused me long before the abusive husband came along.  He didn’t like that my husband defended me and has twisted reality into his own truth.  I will never see his two sons.  My daughter and I got along until she inherited her father’s mobile home and I guess I was too nosy… she told me not to call her anymore.

This is my very personal story, but I represent the majority of the disenfranchised… those who are on disability, ill or are no longer sane enough to cope with the world.  Each month disability sends me $600.00 to live on until the next month.  Out of this, I pay rent, lights, phone, food, and expenses.  I am fortunate to be on Medicaid, for I receive my meds for a small co-pay.

Food is cheap and no name brands.  There are no steaks or treats.  There are no movies or outings. There is every day making each penny stretch for laundry and necessities.  My one joy is my ferret, Rascal.

I have no family, no friends.  I stay in my room ninety percent of my time.  From the Domestic Violence, I am disabled permanently.  I have fibromyalgia, degenerative bone disease, crippling arthritis, a bad hip, knee, and chronic sinusitis, asthma, and lung disorders.  I have been so mentally wounded that I must be very careful of the things I try to do.

Each morning I wake up and face the emptiness of another day.  Without the blessing of a donated computer, I would have nothing to do.  It allows me to go to ‘work’ every day and feel less useless.  Worked for all my life.  Now I pretend.

As a young girl, I was terrified of death.  Now I consider it an old friend.  Old people are not afraid to die.  Most of us are more afraid to live.