This is a follow-up post to the 2/25/16
preceding post on What's the Point?
Longevity. What's the point?
Interview # Two
Is it worth the bother and pain?
clarksvilleonline.com
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2005. Katrina.
Hurricane Katrina
Where were you when you heard about Katrina making landfall.
Were you there?
Were you involved?
I was far away from the site, but because of real-time coverage, I watched and watched and watched.
I cannot imagine what a life changer Katrina was for so many people.
It was a life changer for me just watching from afar.
For one thing, watching caskets float up out of the ground, I made a major decision about my burial some day. As though I get to chose!
But I decided to bag the casket idea and go for cremation and "scattering".
Morbid, yes? I can't help it! I'm a nurse.
Another Katrina life changer for me came in the form of an "interview" with one of my grown sons in the long and horrid aftermath of Katrina.
See, with my additional education in Social Gerontology, the study of aging and the social impact surrounding aging, I was horrified by the media coverage of old old old unwell patients who, in order to be saved, put young and needed human beings, (the care givers) at risk for their lives.
Some caregivers rose to the challenge. OMG
Some caregivers made different decisions and opted out. OMG
I withheld judgement as I thought about it.
Yet in an emotional highly charged situation, to withhold judgement is as good as judging.
So I said to my grown son, "If I am ever in a situation as an old old person where to save me you must put your life at risk, please go on without me."
The look that crossed my son's face was as sad and hopeless as any look I have seen in another human being's countenance. His voice was wretched, full of an understanding-deficit void, as he softly accused me: "What kind of people do you think we are?"
I was taken aback by the accusation. Did I not command the moral high ground here?!
"What kind of people do you think we are?"
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Looking for the moral high ground in all that I do,
missing the boat sometimes, maybe even often,
Riverwatch
PS Thanks for being who you are.
achhikhabre.com
