Lately, hubby and I have had to focus on end-of-life-things, because of elderly family. But enjoying those old folks who are ahead of me age-wise, has provided me with a whacky glimpse into my possible future. Through my interactions with them, I’ve discovered the wonderful humour involved in getting older. With all its foibles and fancies. So today I want to share some fun stories with you. You must understand I am not laughing at old folks … I are one! … But the end of our lives can produce circumstances that are just plain hilarious. These things take our pompous, stuffy I’ve-got-it-all-together attitudes, and poke huge holes in them.  It seems we’ve become too vague to realise we aren’t who we were, anymore!!

My dear Mum, is now 97 years old. She has been extremely deaf all her life. Back in the ark, people whacked other people over the ear-hole regularly, and that had dire results for her. She has been terribly deaf as long as I can remember. Moving along from that stuff, because I want to illustrate the funny bits, not the gnash-your-teeth-and-blame-other-people ones. Lately she has been talking about her hearing loss a lot. She went into an old folk’s home years ago, her choice, and … well … those places can leave a lot to be desired unless you go into one of the millionaire ones! She didn’t!

However she’s happy there – she tells us so, often! Most of the time Mum, in her newly discovered forgetfulness, repeats the same caring questions, over and over again, sometimes minutes apart. We just answer her like it is the first time we’ve heard it. I’ve found a useful secret when relating to the elderly – old people love to reminisce. Back to Mum’s ears.

Recently we discovered that she has not been wearing her hearing aids. We figured that out because we’ve had to shout a lot when we went to see her. So hubby trundled off to get her hearing aids checked out – again – that was the third time in as many months. The home cheerfully gave him 5 single hearing aids to be checked out, even though hearing aids are designed to work in pairs! But, apparently, none of them were working. Well, that odd single hearing aid was always going to be out of luck really. Maybe its partner wandered off somewhere or was stood on! That’s when it transpired that the single hearing aid actually belongs to someone else, called Tony. Who is probably wondering why his hearing aids don’t work either! 

And at the same time, we discovered that one of the other whole pairs has enjoyed the wash and rinse cycle in the washing machine. Hearing aids don’t like that …apparently! The final pair of the five aids were issued in 2016. If I were a hearing aid, I think I’d turn up my toes after 8 or 9 years too. So where have my Mum’s brand new hearing aids gone? Not a clue, neither has the staff. Maybe there is an old lady with a few of them stuffed in each ear or someone is flogging used hearing aids on Ebay. Gotcha! Currently there are more new ones on the way … which is useful. Now we can talk to Mum and not disturb the people 3 blocks away.

Hubby has been a geriatric nurse in his past, and he’s told me some funny stories about his experiences with elderly patients. In the olden days if your teeth were bad you got false teeth – but nowadays they give you root canal and crowns. Dentists became very clever about this kind of stuff in the years in between – they all drive BMWs now! Anyhoo! One morning at the home hubby discovered 6 old folks who couldn’t find their false teeth. He investigated and found one old chap who looked rather like a gold fish – you know the puffy ones? Hmmm. They fished out 6 pairs of false teeth from inside his mouth, and none of them were his! The nurses restored the teeth to their rightful owners after a spot of disinfection. 

Then there was a dear old man who had to get up out of his bed every night to go to the toilet. He had formulated a clever system to make sure he could find his bed again, by counting the doors between his room and the toilet. All went well until he tried to return to his room! He carefully counted, got back to his room and lo and behold, someone else was in what was supposed to be his bed! So the old man figured he must have counted incorrectly, and he walked back to the loo, and began again. He did this many times and still came up with the same result. Fortunately a nurse went by and found the poor old chap still wandering up and down the hallway muttering to himself. It transpired that Goldilocks – in the shape of an often-wandering little old lady – had wandered into his room and snaffled his just-right bed! 

On yet another night one elderly lady suddenly stood up on her bed, walked to the end of it, put her foot on the food tray and grasped the curtain rail … all of this without slipping over! And then she hung there like a trapeze artist. Eventually she lost her grip and fell to the floor, on her head. Fortunately, when she got up, she was totally undamaged and after careful X-ray examination, they put her back into her bed. Why would she do such a thing? Who knows? Maybe she liked the monkey bars as a kid! I still think getting older is a gift! Bye for today. 👋

Psalm 73:26: “Though my flesh and my heart fail, God is the rock of my heart, my portion forever.”