The Slide Downhill - Michael James

An idea brought to my attention in a Sherlock Holmes novel concerned the advisability of elderly persons sticking to routines they establish in mid–life, so that should an unfortunate occurrence leave them immobile or incommunicado, their friends and rescuers would know where to search for them. In that particular story, an elderly gentleman had abandoned the path he usually followed for his evening constitutional, whereupon those concerned with his whereabouts were unable to determine them.

For my part, after digesting the value of the advice proffered by Mr Conan Doyle in his tale, I decided to follow it scrupulously. I set about organizing my life accordingly, and started with a tabula rasa both in terms of my movements and the places where I put the dozens of little things floating about my domicile. My work has its own determiners and I am unable to change much there. What I was able to rationalize brought a pleasant surprise: much in my head had been been cleared. I found myself to be  free of certain clutter, my mind dwelling on more rewarding thoughts and concerns than was customary.

And now that this system, which I have expanded considerably, has been subjected to a falling-off in areas other than daily doings, it seems likely that a breaking of simple routines could indicate an underlying disorder. So I have become alert to signs such as reaching for a memory or a word and not finding it, and I have watched myself carefully, looking for examples of weakness so that I might head off its development.   

For a while I thought I was successful. I chose my words with care, thinking ahead to circumvent potential loss of memory. I wrote notes to myself concerning things I did not wish to forget, secrets I was unwilling to share. And it worked until quite recently. But the other day, when a lady I have known for years entered the dog park and I wished to introduce her to my companion, I had to stop in mid sentence because her name would not come to mind. I admitted to a “senior moment.” The lady glanced at me wonderingly, provided her name, and, seeing my embarrassment, looked away. She left shortly thereafter.

After the new arrival had departed, my companion said in a kindly voice, “That happens to us all sooner or later. Of course, you weren’t ready for it quite so soon.” I sat dejectedly and felt the years piling up like the hemlock cold rising in Socrates’ calves, or Macbeth not being able to say “Amen” to a dinner guest’s prayer.

It would be grand to be able to say it ended there, that the blanks in the mind, the names or ideas forgotten, have retreated, but apparently they haven’t. Numbers give me the greatest trouble: phone numbers, pins, ages, recent dates, birthdays, license plates. Do you know the license plate number of your car? No? I didn’t think you would. I’ve tried to memorize mine and can’t. I can remember swaths of “The Ancient Mariner,” “Kubla Khan,” and speeches from Hamlet, of course memorized in youth when the memory slate was cleaner than it is today, but I cannot now remember one letter of my car’s license plate.

These changes taking place in me are not restricted to memory. My dog has begun to act differently around me. He used to come whenever I called; now I have to raise my voice as in anger, have to call him names, and he takes his time responding even when it looks as if I will take him for a walk. He seems insecure as though uncertain of who I am. Perhaps it’s the walking stick I have taken to using; perhaps it’s my frequent displays of anger that estrange him or cause him to think I will use the stick on his back. But he’s not used to being beaten so I’m at a loss to know where that would have come from unless his perception of emotion is so keen it overrides custom or vision.

There’s no telling where these lapses in memory will end, in an veteran’s home possibly. I keep intending to visit the local one and get myself signed up so the paperwork will be in order when the day arrives that I am unable to look after myself. I wonder about the  quality of their libraries and food. Do they need books? Do the inmates read? Or have they taken to copying the young, faces glued to their little screens all day long?

I’m unready to sign in to an old folks home; I find being with old people exclusively to be a bore. First off, all they like to talk about is their maladies. It’s bad enough to have illnesses let alone to talk about them all the time. Do their companions actually listen, d’you suppose? Most people are too darned busy to listen to old folks whine about their arthritic joints and their irregular bowels.

So no old folks’ home for me, at least not in the immediate future. But then ultimately, that wouldn’t be entirely up to me, would it? I mean, who wants to put up with an old codger for long, unless he’s particularly well heeled? When a person loses his ability to balance a check book, buy groceries, maintain his vehicle, and pass tests at the DMV, what options for self-direction are left if he wishes to remain independent of closest family members? Why clearly, he must check into the nearest old folks facility he can afford. In my case it would be a veterans’ home, as I said: it’s close, cost-effective, and in a lovely area of Napa Valley, just over the hills from where I now live.

My wife says that would not be necessary. We live next to our daughter and son-in-law who already help us a good deal, and as long as we have each other, no move will be necessary. If I go first, our daughter would look after my wife; her chicks will have fledged by then, in all likelihood. If she were to go before me, I’d be rather too much of a burden for our girl, I suspect, and would probably check myself into the Vet’s home.

That’s all at the bottom of Time’s slope; I’m not there yet. But what I do see ahead on the slope fails to encourage me. I see an old fellow gradually becoming removed from those around him by his increasing ailments, deafness, lack of mobility, pain and the bad temper that comes with it. 

This gradual removal of a person from his social environment is a form of alienation; it may be a precursor to death itself, the ultimate removal or final taking out of the garbage. What is left is of no earthly  use, a phenomenon that is especially true of people in the final stages of dementia and decay, where they are essentially a bag of skin and bones occupying a bed. As the world becomes increasingly crowded, I imagine society will become less fastidious in dealing with its terminally ill, hence the move towards the legalization of doctor assisted suicide. Of course for that, only the brave or desperate will apply.

Feeling removed from my environment, drifting as in a time warp, I am riding a wave  of Tramadol®, Tylenol®, and tincture of cannabis, trying to manage the pain in my back and hip. And although I couldn’t do much to change it anyway, I don’t seem to mind missing most of what goes on around me and imagine a time coming when people will speak over me as if I weren’t present at all. However, things could change. If I get some really good hearing aids from the Veteran’s Administration, they will allow me to be more nearly present than I have been. And if I can shake off much of the pain, I may return to the land of the living until the next time Morpheus is called upon to work his magic. 

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