A GOOD YEAR - 95

Frieda Purinton  

Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin -


What is a 'best year' in one's life, especially when there have been 95 of them?   Marriage, children, time with relatives (including her own parents), travel, meaningful contribution to others - all of these, and more, create a life well lived.

Today is Mom's 95th birthday, and with help from staff at the Skilled Nursing Facility at Door County Memorial Hospital (North Shore), and my sisters, Helen and Martha, she will become the center of attention until nap time.

She may not always remember the day or month, but when a party was mentioned for her birthday, she wished for chocolate cake.

Yesterday, when I visited her, she thought the special day had already passed, but with flowers and card in hand, I assured her that wasn't the case.    We communicated in the manner that has proven to be the most successful, given her poor hearing, of using pen and paper, constructing short phrases of conversation, from me, for her to read.  She nods, often smiles, and occasionally asks a question in reply, and this tells me she knows and remembers (maybe more than I had realized).  She can place my words into her thoughts.

Happy Birthday, Mom.   Here's a small gift for you, one who never has gone online, who never learned how to use a computer (or needed one), but for whom life still had, and has, precious moments.   (From a visit in August, 2010):

A VISIT

Right eye partly opened

In afternoon repose

Mother breathes easily and sleeps

And her roommate sleeps too

A few family photos are pinned to the

Wallboard beyond the foot of her bed

Top floor apartments and top floor

Offices are the most sought after

Some people work all their lives to

Achieve top floor status and never get there

By those standards Mom has it made

A mending hip at 93 bought her

This top floor hospital room

Facing sunny skies over town

Where eye level cumulus float by

Three meals are prepared if she cares to eat  

An unwatched television screen

Plays Little House On The Prairie and

A nurse frequently checks in

To determine if she sleeps and breathes

Or just sleeps  

“Have you been up for a walk today?” I ask 

Then repeat my question

Because she didn’t appear to

Hear or maybe didn’t care to hear me

Awake and alert for the moment

She turns her head toward the window

“I just watch the clouds go by”

- Dick Purinton    (This just in - photo at left by Martha Bennett)