Margaret! Margaret!

When my grandma was in a nursing home losing her dignity in the last years of her life,she used to call out for "Margaret!" None of us knew who Margaret was...She was 92 and she lost a lot of weight and a lot of herself within a few short years.. She did not have Alzheimer's, she was too old. She had something we used to call organic brain syndrome and we now call dementia...they are both ugly reminders of what getting old is going to do to us, most of us anyway-we cannot all have the grace and good fortune of Betty White. Grandma was not Marie anymore,she was a shell of someone we once knew and loved,even if she was a scary, old German woman, who just happened to be our Me-Ma.

Why did we let them "bully" us into the things we did when it came to her? There are things I will do different when I am old. I will NOT let my grandchildren decide because my own children don't know what to do or care enough to talk to me about it before I lose myself. My children deserve to feel the guilt of making the wrong choices, if they do, not my grandchildren. I want to be dropped off to any halfway decent old folks home, when I lose "me" and they can tell them that my name is "Margaret Jones" and then they should run, not walk away, run and never come back...I won't know who they are anyway, will I? I won't know "Jack or Jill" will I? so I won't know the difference. If I am in my right mind, then they can still drop me off somewhere and I will not piss and moan and whine about how awful my life is...I will appreciate" three hots and a cot" and be happy that I am not working and that I am actually retired.

 I will be happy and proud for my children and grandchildren and not guilt them into visiting me. If they don't come willingly, then I don't deserve them to come at all. In other words, I don't want to be a "beast of burden" Death must be better than being old and miserable and I would choose death. I will have a stash of sleepers and a box of wine stored away somewhere for the occasion of my passing if need be. I have specific things I want done to celebrate my life, not mourn my death...I have a book of instructions and I want it to be respected, but only if I have respected those who will want to celebrate me. I am not afraid of death. I am afraid of losing me, like my grandma, and becoming a ghost of who I really am.

Let me go when I am done and not one moment sooner, Dear God, I pray...but let me go before I turn into Margaret Jones, for my children's sake...The mind is a terrible thing to lose, but I am willing to give up my mind, but not my memory... I have so much more to say and I don't care if I am ever published or paid much attention to by anyone else...I do care that I was loved by someone and meant something to someone...

you can look back and say, "you did okay" you were loved...