My sincere apologies, spell-check didn't know I meand Staph instead of staff. Little Egypt Heritage Articles Stories of Southern Illinois (c) Bill Oliver 2 November 2003 Vol 2 Issue: #39 ISBN: pending Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt, Soon to be 92 year old Mother-in-Law entered the hospital last Monday and has since contracted a staff infection and is a pretty ill patient. Right now she is non-responsive, which I associate to something like a "comma". This article has been influenced by that fact. Someone recently asked me what I do with all the time I have since I am now "retired". I replied that, "I spend it all trying to figure out how I ever found the time to have a teaching career of thirty two and a half years." My favorite columnist, Roberta de Boer, who writes for The [Toledo] Blade, wrote in her column recently about time and being busy, too busy, to talk long on the phone with a friend. Yet, she admitted that they stretched the "minute" into almost an hour. She went on to explain that the time was necessary because one of the things that was making her friend's life busy was caring for an aging parent. That the parent was having some vertigo problems and falling more often, necessitating long drives. The solution had been to bring the parent to a "nursing home" in the community where the daughter lives. There is, as Ms de Boer writes, "a real empty feeling in the pit of your stomach" when a child trades a parent's independence for the security of "at hand care" when necessary. There is guilt, usually self inflicted, though not always. Those cousins of mine who yet remain in this world remember Grandma Oliver always remarking, "not the way it is supposed to be!", about her friends who went to the "poor farm" or "old folks home" [or nursing home]. Grandma always believed that she would never go to a nursing home ... nope, she had five children to care for her. Well, at 102, she had four children remaining and due to two living 2000 miles away, and health concerns of all four children, Grandma spent a few remaining months in a "home". With each visit she would remind me that this wasn't the way it was supposed to be. She would say that she brought five children into the world and that she should not have to be in a "home". The familiar story of Great Grandma Whittenberg was often repeated by Grandma Oliver. Great Grandma Whittenberg who brought children into the world when she was Grandma Benson, had more children with her second husband. She spent her remaining years with one of her daughters. Grandma Oliver loved to tell of her sitting in her rocker on the front porch, shelling peas, watching her grandchildren playing in the front yard. That was Grandma's idea of how it was "supposed" to be. Dad spent his last months in a nursing home. I can hear Grandma Oliver voicing her disapproval; loud and clear. Two of Dad's sisters spent their remaining time in the homes of their children. And, I can hear Grandma repeating ... "that's the way it's supposed to be." But, I really hear her approval for what took place for her last remaining child, her "baby", Dad's brother. Cousin Dennie, maybe because we all heard Grandma, took time from his work and spent it all with his father. As I visited with Uncle Virge, I saw a great bond between father and son. Yep, Grandma Oliver, sitting on a cloud, rockin' in a chair, had to be saying, "Yep, that's the way it's supposed to be!" e-la-di-e-das-di ha-wi nv-wa-do-hi-ya nv-wa-to-hi-ya-da. (May you walk in peace and harmony) Wado, Bill -=- Other sites worth visiting: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/SOIL http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ILMASSAC http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/state/BillsArticles/LittleEgypt/intro.html