My new Nephew Bennett and his elderly counterparts
This entry has been a long time in coming, but I really feel strongly about putting into words my observations about the similarities between the people for whom I care at two nursing homes in Jefferson, WI and Dousman, WI and the life of my dear nephew, Bennett, who graced us with his presence more than four months ago. How time flies, especially in reference to another individual who changes rapidly with each week! The birth of my nephew, my eldest sister’s baby boy, Bennett, has profoundly affected my life in an unequivocal and irrevocable way. A miracle at once simple and utterly bewildering, Bennett awed and perplexed his family with his perfection and his infant predilections for constant attention and care. Psalm 139 says that all of us were knit in our mother’s womb and are fearfully and wonderfully made. To understand this about yourself renders a sense of peace and gratefulness that God was so active in knowing you and preparing your way into the world. But to envision the result of his ministrations inside of one’s sister embodied in another precious being, lends itself to intense captivation in every nuance. 
Being accustomed to caring for elderly people, who are completing their final days on earth, I was riveted by the hope and dreams we instantly possessed for a little being incapable of expressing himself in a comprehensible language. While spending time with my sister, her husband and quaky father, Marty, and my dear nephew immediately following his birth, I was humbled by my feebleness to understand what Bennett needed in his most vulnerable state, but I so clearly saw the providence of my savior. With primal seamlessness Genna reached for Bennett and supplied his most basic needs. Of course, there exists a sharp learning curve in suavely navigating early parenthood. Seeing the uproarious behavior Bennett displayed when he was uncomfortable, hungry, irritated or dissatisfied I tried to empathize with my sister and cling to the knowledge that what God had given Genna as a mother was ample to provide for her infant son.
During these two weeks, I could not help comparing the care one provides for an infant with the care one gives to an elderly nursing home resident. I hope you will find my observations interesting. As you may discern, the topic of life—the advent and the demise—fascinates me. My conclusion is that the elderly who are sickly and mentally corroded most resemble their puerile counterparts, constructing a finale closely allied with the conditions they encountered at the commencement of life. How cyclical we are!
Dependence
Both infants and elderly nursing home residents require fastidious care and a watchful eye in the physical sense. By physical, I am referencing hygiene, touch, nourishing and dressing the infant or the elderly person. Once I started to compare and contrast, I found more similarities than dissimilarities. You may be surprised. I wish I could also go into the emotional realm, but it is much less palpable and much more variable, so I’m going to stick to that which is easy to explain and describe.
I will begin with hygiene, encapsulated in the familiar adage: “You enter the world wearing diapers and you leave the world wearing diapers.” I wholeheartedly agree, and yet, there is so much more to that statement. Infant and baby diapers are cute and small and display bucolic, pastel images of innocence and fantasy. Elderly diapers are aseptically white and crinkly or colored for the size of the individual (purple for an average bottom, blue for a large person, yellow for the unmanageably fat person and green for those who are extremely incontinent or obese). Functionality categorizes the elderly incontinent products and one cannot even call them diapers because that would dehumanize an elderly person, failing to respect the 80 years in between the last time they wore an incontinent product and their current situation. However, in my mind, I would rather recall the guileless, happy days of wearing diapers as a baby than the harsh reality of wearing a “depend,” a “dri-pride,” a “pad” or a “1-2-3.” Can you really euphemize the horrible state of being incapable of holding your urine or your stool until you reach the proper receptacle?
As for touch, I am not sure if the lack of touch in an elderly person’s life is a sign of respect or a sign of neglect, but they are nearly left alone, increasingly so as they or if they lose their cognizance. A baby, however, is showered with kisses and embraces. I could not stop kissing my nephew and cuddling him close. What stops us from reaching out to those who are on the other end of the spectrum, many of whom are as vulnerable as babes and who smile and sigh when a loving touch is given? Since reflecting upon this fact, I have tried even more diligently to hold the hands of my patients, to kiss their withered cheeks or to squeeze gently their sunken shoulders.
In regards to the nourishment one receives at the advent and demise of life, there is a striking series of differences and similarities. First, infants have a strict regimen of breast milk or formula followed by selected foods, which have been deemed appropriate for the new digestive system. In the same way, elderly nursing home patients have diet cards that restrict their salt, sugar or potassium intake. They may have to consume pureed foods like a baby, being unable to sustain a masticating motion long enough to be able to swallow it without choking. The greatest difference I believe between the specific diet babies must sustain and the controlled diet for the elderly is that babies will graduate into their freedom to consume whatever they choose; whereas once an elderly person receives a regimented diet, it neither changes nor improves. Progression categorizes the feeding habits of a baby and restriction for the elderly.
Finally, most elderly nursing home patients require help in dressing themselves as their bones become more brittle and they are unable to make the movements necessary to dress themselves independently. I tried dressing Bennett as I would an elderly person: arms first then over the head. Well, he was too pliable and wiggly to accomplish this task, so I managed another way. Parents must dress their babies; they are unable to dress themselves. But the elderly person who can no longer manage to put his/her clothes on is someone who is certainly in the final round of life.
There is a rulebook of sorts for the beginning of life, but what must we do to have success for the end of life, whether in caring for someone or living it ourselves? After all, when one is a baby, there is a limitation in scope and hope forms the substance of the baby’s life; but when one is living out the final moments, much is considered to have been lost or gained, so dependence is rather tragic than hopeful as with the inception of life.
In light of these musings, I see that these fragile beings—elderly people and babies—share in a web of tenuous conditions that result in the positive exiting of or entering into this world. When an elderly person is loved by family and caretakers, their final moments are full of closure and peace. And when a baby is brought into a loving family concerned with its development, there is beauty and promise. So, I conclude that one must be at peace with the passing of an individual’s life as much as with the emergence of new life. We can be invigorated by the lessons of the past and be awed by the hint of what is to come. I love you Bennett.
Being accustomed to caring for elderly people, who are completing their final days on earth, I was riveted by the hope and dreams we instantly possessed for a little being incapable of expressing himself in a comprehensible language. While spending time with my sister, her husband and quaky father, Marty, and my dear nephew immediately following his birth, I was humbled by my feebleness to understand what Bennett needed in his most vulnerable state, but I so clearly saw the providence of my savior. With primal seamlessness Genna reached for Bennett and supplied his most basic needs. Of course, there exists a sharp learning curve in suavely navigating early parenthood. Seeing the uproarious behavior Bennett displayed when he was uncomfortable, hungry, irritated or dissatisfied I tried to empathize with my sister and cling to the knowledge that what God had given Genna as a mother was ample to provide for her infant son.
During these two weeks, I could not help comparing the care one provides for an infant with the care one gives to an elderly nursing home resident. I hope you will find my observations interesting. As you may discern, the topic of life—the advent and the demise—fascinates me. My conclusion is that the elderly who are sickly and mentally corroded most resemble their puerile counterparts, constructing a finale closely allied with the conditions they encountered at the commencement of life. How cyclical we are!
Dependence
Both infants and elderly nursing home residents require fastidious care and a watchful eye in the physical sense. By physical, I am referencing hygiene, touch, nourishing and dressing the infant or the elderly person. Once I started to compare and contrast, I found more similarities than dissimilarities. You may be surprised. I wish I could also go into the emotional realm, but it is much less palpable and much more variable, so I’m going to stick to that which is easy to explain and describe.
I will begin with hygiene, encapsulated in the familiar adage: “You enter the world wearing diapers and you leave the world wearing diapers.” I wholeheartedly agree, and yet, there is so much more to that statement. Infant and baby diapers are cute and small and display bucolic, pastel images of innocence and fantasy. Elderly diapers are aseptically white and crinkly or colored for the size of the individual (purple for an average bottom, blue for a large person, yellow for the unmanageably fat person and green for those who are extremely incontinent or obese). Functionality categorizes the elderly incontinent products and one cannot even call them diapers because that would dehumanize an elderly person, failing to respect the 80 years in between the last time they wore an incontinent product and their current situation. However, in my mind, I would rather recall the guileless, happy days of wearing diapers as a baby than the harsh reality of wearing a “depend,” a “dri-pride,” a “pad” or a “1-2-3.” Can you really euphemize the horrible state of being incapable of holding your urine or your stool until you reach the proper receptacle?
In regards to the nourishment one receives at the advent and demise of life, there is a striking series of differences and similarities. First, infants have a strict regimen of breast milk or formula followed by selected foods, which have been deemed appropriate for the new digestive system. In the same way, elderly nursing home patients have diet cards that restrict their salt, sugar or potassium intake. They may have to consume pureed foods like a baby, being unable to sustain a masticating motion long enough to be able to swallow it without choking. The greatest difference I believe between the specific diet babies must sustain and the controlled diet for the elderly is that babies will graduate into their freedom to consume whatever they choose; whereas once an elderly person receives a regimented diet, it neither changes nor improves. Progression categorizes the feeding habits of a baby and restriction for the elderly.
There is a rulebook of sorts for the beginning of life, but what must we do to have success for the end of life, whether in caring for someone or living it ourselves? After all, when one is a baby, there is a limitation in scope and hope forms the substance of the baby’s life; but when one is living out the final moments, much is considered to have been lost or gained, so dependence is rather tragic than hopeful as with the inception of life.
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