Geezerette?
Tue., October 1, 09:41 PM
My Friend Gloria
Gloria and I used to work in the same office in New York City. We made a good team. I had more education, but she had experience with the company. So I could correct her spelling, and she told me whom to call when my typewriter broke.
When we met, Gloria lived with her mother, who was a widow. She was engaged to be married, but her mother did not like her fiancé very much, so they were engaged for a long time. They eloped one New Year’s Eve, but they didn’t have a wedding and move into their own home until several months later.
Gloria and Bob celebrated with us the night that Husband and I became engaged. Gloria had lots of friends, for she was kind and helpful. She was also a lot of fun. That was then.
After I moved to New Haven, we didn’t see each other, but we kept in touch with lots of letters. I sent her pictures of my babies. I wrote to her when my father died, and she phoned me when her mother passed away. And she wrote me a long sad letter when a bad heart took Bob away.
Now Gloria has been a widow longer than she was married, and she still lives in the same apartment in Queens that she shared with Bob. Somehow, between then and now, she turned into a geezerette. She suffers from various maladies, so when the weather affects her knees or her lungs, she cannot go downstairs. That means she cannot shop or even go to church across the street.
The neighborhood is no longer safe, and the building is not kept up. I tried to have her move to senior housing near us, but she is afraid to leave. I know something about her opportunities in Connecticut, but I don’t know New York law. Once I thought I might invite her to live with us, but Providence protected me before I got that far. I don’t think I can stand a geezerette.
The last time I saw Gloria was when my sister brought her to New Haven for my surprise birthday party. She was excited because she was turning sixty-five and would be able to collect Social Security. Somehow she has added a year here and there, and she tells me she is eighty, though I think she's seventy-six or -seven. I think she forgets what story she told to which person. But maybe the doctor is right and she is truly losing her memory.
I think what tries my patience most – with Geezer or Geezerette – is an unwillingness to change, even when it’s inconsequential. Once when Gloria was grumbling about the “Orientals” in her neighborhood (“even worse than the Puerto Ricans”), I suggested that maybe they prefer to be called “Asians.” (That’s true of my son’s friends.) “Well, I’m just used to calling them Orientals,” says Gloria, who still uses that terminology.
She listens to the radio a lot, and she used to complain about the high price of batteries. So I began sending her batteries each month. She said she didn’t have enough outlets to plug in all the radios, and I offered to get her some surge strips, which would not only provide extra outlets but might also protect her radios. But then her electric bill would go up. (Are you hearing the sound of “I want to complain, don’t solve my problems”?) Well, it’s not such a big thing, to mail a few batteries, although you have to add delivery confirmation of some kind, because packages disappear when they go through that post office. You’ve got to imagine what someone thought, when they opened a box containing a package of matzoh and a bottle of vitamins!
Now, Gloria writes down the date she installs the batteries, so that she can tell which ones last the longest. Then she tells me that Big Name Brand lasts a day or two longer than the generics that I buy. Never mind that she’s not paying for them! I worked out the math, showing her that my generics still cost significantly less per day, but she doesn’t really trust math she doesn’t understand. Similar requests accompany the glucosamine-chondroitin I get for her arthritis. “Only Schiff, that’s the only one I trust.” Except now she asked for another brand, because maybe her body is too accustomed to the ones she’s been taking.
Gloria has a passionate interest in sending greeting cards, which she addresses in multi-colored inks. But she has trouble finding the right pens. “Not too fine, I can’t see them.” “I don’t want to have to press too hard because my hands hurt. I start my Christmas cards at Halloween because it’s so hard to do half the lines in red and the other half in green.” I bought a package of four Flair® pens, one each of black, blue, red and green.
She left me a message – how wonderful it was that I had sent a blue one, because her blue one just dried up, and how awful it was that you can’t buy just one pen… I suppose I could find a store that would sell just one Flair® – for the price I paid for the pack of four. (And they won’t carry green, so I still would be searching for a St. Patrick’s Day pen.) No one will ever convince her that it’s perfectly all right to address them all in one color – or that the post office likes black, even if she thinks black is bad luck.
Being very proud of her Irish heritage, Gloria revels in St. Patrick’s Day. All the greeting cards are addressed in green, of course, and every addressee has O’ added to his or her name. Personally, I wouldn’t miss the card, and I have my own opinions of St. Patrick’s Day in New York, but she doesn’t care – and I admit, I hate to take away one of her few pleasures.
This morning I snail-mailed I her a copy of Cosmicrayola’s public service announcement about smoking. It won’t stop her, despite the fact that she has always had “weak lungs,” and that she now has a touch of emphysema. Of course, she has outlived a couple of doctors and she doesn’t trust any “new” doctor she has seen, except the foot doctor. God forbid she should go to a clinic, because “they use the patients for interns to practice on.” She has also survived the undertaker whose name was on her life insurance.
Is she destitute? Does she really have to stay in that rotten neighborhood just because the apartment is rent-controlled? I honestly don’t know. On the one hand, she cries poverty and even accepted food stamps before her Social Security kicked in. On the other hand, she says she has some money put away for when she has to go into a nursing home. (But she won’t go into assisted living.) She’s too far away for me to help, and I told her she needs an advocate, a caseworker, or whatever they want to call it. I looked up a few agencies, but it’s harder to tell what’s what if you’re not really in the town.
Since she admires radio talk show hosts so much, I suggested she write and ask for their advice. (Ha!) I guess my biggest fear is that one day she’ll leave that apartment feet first – either dead or too sick for the paramedics to bring her back. And I won’t even be able to find out.
