Reply #121: Too close to home for me not to cry

[WatchWhatISay]

Last March I took my 84 year old mother in law to vote. She was blind and dying from cancer, but she really wanted to vote for Obama, so I had the pleasure of helping her do that. She was not black. She was a very white wonderful woman who was smart enough to be co-owner of a patent for a blow-out preventer she designed for Cameron Iron Works, as well as a teacher, a veteran, a mother of four. She grew up in Iowa and married an alchoholic man who treated her poorly, never gave her credit for anything, rarely allowed her to spend time developing friendships (she was very lonely),and never let her have her dignity. Yet she stuck it out with him for 40 years until he died. He squandered much of her inheritance of selfish toys, and his sons put him up on a pedestal, instead of her, because he would drink and smoke pot with them.

I think while we were at the polls, we must both have been thinking that she probably wouldn't be here to vote in November, but she did what she could. I had not really gotten to know her until she became too ill to maintain her independence, and at first it was hard to get used to living at her house when I would have preferred being home. As her illness became worse it started to affect that wonderful brain of hers, and thats really when she began hoping for death, because her sharp mind was her proudest possession. In moments of paranoia she accused me of some pretty awful things, but she was not herself by then. But my husband is working overseas, and her own daughter couldnt see her way to take off work to stay with her (ironically, she took the full week off AFTER her mother died, to make sure she was in charge of who got what possessions were left behind). So another brother and I took care of her those last few months. But on June 13th, she passed away.

I cried for her, knowing how happy she would have been to have seen Barak's speech last night.

I guess my point is, too often we take the very elderly for granted.

Last night, when I was at a local bar at a convention watch party, I noticed that of all the people that were there, about half were over 50, and about half were under 30. Almost no one in that 30-50 years range. What happened to that generation?