A Memoir of Retirement

Where does my grief belong? Private vs. Public

/ Laura Lee Carter / 1 Comment

My sister and I have been dealing with this question for the past few years, as our father died and then our mother and brother’s health continued to fail. In addition, we have both lost companion animals this past year. Is it better to share with others your inner feelings which are dominating your time and energy, or is it best to keep quiet?

In a world where most feelings are now allowed to be shared with those around you, those who supposedly care about you, when someone asks how you are, is it OK to say:

“Well my mom is despondent since she broke her hip and had to be moved to a nursing home, my brother just entered hospice care, and my husband suffers greatly from the major surgery he had this month. Did I mention that my dog died in my arms in July?”

Mostly my sister and I cry together on the phone and then go on. She tells me about how it breaks her heart to watch our Mom’s health and will to live fail. I tell her about our brother’s lonely, sad existence as his lungs and brain fail him. Throw in nearly a month at a hospital two hours north of here for Mike’s surgery, and you will see the sum total of our pain and grief.

Our family Christmas 2021

I know most will say, at least you still have your sister to talk to, and that is such a blessing, but Diane and I can’t help but feel that others don’t want to be brought down by our family’s grief. So many people just cannot handle the pain and grief of others. I have witnessed this personally. Everyone will have their own time of great grief, no matter how hard they try to deny it.

Having someone special to share your grief really does help…

“Words” from a Broken Brain

/ Laura Lee Carter / 10 Comments

For as long as I can remember, I have always loved words. Even before I learned English, I made up my own language to communicate with my cat and doll. Words meant so much to me. They seemed like magic. With the right words you might get others to understand your most important and secret feelings. With words you could begin to understand other peoples’ worlds. They were the key to everything!

As I grew I kept loving them more and more. Even though, or perhaps because, I was a book worm at heart, words were my own kind of magic. So I read everything I could, especially about other women’s lives. I wondered how they made it through the difficult world I saw outside my door. Words were my key to understanding my world. Then I learned how words could resolve misunderstandings and bring people closer together, another form of word magic. I always wanted to learn more.

Eventually I became a librarian with a whole building full of words. So many stories from all over the world, explaining why we do the things we do. I wanted to learn everything in those books! I began to wonder if I might write a book someday, but then I would find a book that expressed my ideas or feelings better than I could and say, “See, I hasn’t meant to be a writer.”

My own version of a midlife crisis at age 49 changed my mind. I felt like I had to write to understand and explain to others what I was experiencing. This phenomenal transition was too important for others to miss out on. That is when I became a writer. I started a blog that took off, with thousands of followers who seemed to understand what I was talking about. Words helped me to expand my world, all around the world! I had friends in Europe, Asia and Australia who understood the exceptional opportunity of changing everything in midlife.

Since then much has changed in my life. A traumatic brain injury in 2008 began to stand in the way of my wonderful relationship with words. I did get back to writing and still loved it, but then I learned, through a few concussions, that I needed to live on oxygen fulltime. And the concussions took their toll. Now I can only properly handle fewer and fewer words. A conversation with another can only go on for an hour or so before my brain gets tired and needs some silence to rest up for more time with others. Some days I have trouble remember the most basic words, like yesterday I had a hard time remembering the word for “dimples.”

For all of these reasons I will not be writing here much longer. My joy in writing is diminishing slowly. The concentration required seems to hurt my mind, especially being on the computer so long. After writing something like this I have to stare off into space for a while to recuperate.

But I do still love words and will continue that relationship for as long as I live. And I will also continue to admire when other writers get it so right. I believe this writer got it right in describing my favorite vision of life after death:

“There is a moment when your dreams and memories merge together to form a perfect world. That is heaven. Each heaven is unique. This is the world of you. The land is filled with all you hold dear, and the sky is your imagination.” – From the end of the movie “1883” written by Taylor Sheridan

Time for Aspen Leaf-Peeking Again!

/ Laura Lee Carter / 1 Comment

We took a beautiful drive yesterday up to Westcliffe and then east towards Colorado City to see the autumn leaves before they get knocked off with the first snow storm in the mountains…

As it turns out the high peaks of Sangre de Cristos on the way up to Westcliffe are already covered in snow, with the aspen turning right below that.

Then we headed east and witnessed lively colors every time we went around a new curve!

Looks like it’s time for Octoberfest again in La Veta!

Not age limits. Let’s use neuropsychological tests

/ Laura Lee Carter / Leave a comment

Did you know that our country was one of the first in world history to create and do psychological testing on our candidates for military service in World War I? When you are fighting right next to others in trenches, mental stability is quite essential. Psychological and neurological testing is used in numerous ways today to qualify candidates for all kinds of jobs, why not for the most important jobs in the world?

Neuropsychological Testing is a test to measure how well a person’s brain is working. The abilities tested include reading, language usage, attention, learning, processing speed, reasoning, remembering, problem-solving, mood, and more.

With all the talk about age and abilities around our presidential candidates, etc. I would like to explain why age is not necessarily the issue here. Candidates like Donald Trump refer to terms like mild cognitive impairment (MCI) as if we had no way to impartially test for these problems without prejudice. There are excellent ways to test this. I know because I was tested recently.

I had one of these two hour tests last year, administered by a consulting neuropsychologist. Areas tested include attention and processing speed, verbal memory, visual memory, executive function, constructional praxis, apathy, depression, anxiety and sleep. My first observation was how exhausting it was for my brain. I had to sleep for a day afterwards to recover. But I already knew my worst problem was how quickly my brain wears out, and when it’s tired there no solution but rest. I also learned that as a person with mild cognitive impairment, I should not be working or running for any office.

I am certain the American public would benefit by testing such important personages as candidates for president and Congress in this way. What most do not understand and what I had to find out the hard way is that a person’s ability to serve is certainly not about age. It’s about cognitive strength or impairment. We have great tests for that. Let’s use them.

What do we ‘owe’ our parents & ancestors?

/ Laura Lee Carter / 4 Comments

As we age and our parents pass away, we may be stumped with questions about our parents’ lives, the choices they made, and how our existence may have affected them. I know I am. I sometimes wonder why my siblings and I were so disappointing to my parents, and what ancestors further back might have thought of the choices we made in our lives.

The Carter Family in 1966

My siblings and I were raised to feel that we owed quite a bit to our parents. My father, the first to go to college in his family, gave us the best educational opportunities to prepare us to become “something great.” The pressure was on to get a superior education and become exemplary in our chosen field. In response my sister excelled and become a role model in the areas of nursing, gerontology and long-term care. I had a career as an academic librarian and writer, and my brother John resisted Dad’s pressure as best he could. We all knew in the end John was a great disappointment to Dad, and I wasn’t exactly his star child either. I think he always wondered what happened to us. Why weren’t we as driven and successful as him.

The real question is, did we owe our lives to our parents? Historically I believe the answer is a resounding yes. Many believe the primary job of children is to be successful, make a lot of money and take care of their parents when they get elderly. That wasn’t the expectation in my family, thank goodness. I think my Dad believed that the success of his children reflected on him, and vice versa. He always wondered what happened to me and especially John.

John building my garden here in 2019…

As a psychologist I think I now understand what happened. Children naturally resist being told what to do. They may respond by doing the opposite, or in John’s case, doing exactly what he wanted to do. My siblings and I were plenty intelligent to do whatever we chose to do in life, but our self-esteem was irrevocable damaged by our parents belief that continually blaming and shaming children helps to toughen them up for the “real world.” Big mistake, but the damage was already done by our teenage years. That’s when my brother John told Dad to “fuck off” and left home for good. We rarely saw him after that.

Parents please listen, damaging your child’s self-esteem is a terrible way to prepare them for any world. It can easily destroy their lives. My sister and I were able to find good counseling over the years to remedy the destructiveness of our parents. That was the only way we could recover from such a tough childhood. John never did.

What is under this misplaced anger? Living with loss…

/ Laura Lee Carter / 4 Comments

So here’s a lesson I have had to learn only about a million times. Anger is usually a front for avoiding feelings of deep sadness. At the joyful celebration of my Mom’s 90th birthday last week, I felt nothing but anger towards her. I hated the way she seemed to ignore her kids and give all of her attention to the other guests. I got so angry we left early…

When I got home I was still so mad I had to call an old friend for reassurance, because of course I felt guilty for being angry at my poor, confused mother. Then, a week or so later I saw something sad on TV and burst into tears. Deep, boundless melancholy engulfed me. First my favorite pet died and now my Mom and my brother will be leaving us soon. And to make things worse, no one in our medical system understands how to leave us in peace.

The John Carter Sky Garden

I took my brother to his doctor last week and all they can offer him is more ‘tests.” Someone who is close to death does not want or need more tests that are an hour away in Pueblo. He needs comfort and peace. I finally said to the doctor. “He isn’t getting better! How can we make him more comfortable?” So it looks like he may get more home services, which is good, but in the meantime they sent him to the ER yesterday for more tests.. You can probably see why I’m angry.

But underneath it all is just pure sadness. My big brother is dying and I want him to have peace as soon as possible, but I am so sad.