Chapter 20: Getting Old Is Not For Wimps.

How To Handle The Extra Challenges Of Being A Senior.

I stood at the bottom of the hospital bed, talking slowly and soothingly to my mother as she writhed uncontrollably within the raised safety rails, crying out, “Help. Help.” Her stick thin limbs were mottled with yellow and blackish-purple bruises. We had placed hospital pillows between her body and the rails to protect her. But the pillows were insubstantial with too much air between the lonely strands of polyester stuffing, as though there was some hospital protocol for the supply of stuffing as there was for so much else.

I tried to keep my voice level and calm, yet loud enough for her to hear me. I leaned close to the head of the bed. “Try to take a deep breath in and slowly let it out. It may help.” She tried but her ragged breath was more akin to the breathing exercises I did in labor than the meditative ones she and I had practiced over the past few months.

“I can’t…stop it,” she cried out. “Help me!” I stroked her forehead with my thumb and murmured unhelpful sounds. Finally, af…