A dilemma for our times - truly...

As a person whose grandparents all lived well into their 90s or early 100s, I can certainly understand the problems when seniors still insist on driving when they really shouldn't be.

Let me first get to the humor part of this entry.


Here are the top ten ways to tell your favorite senior citizen (parent or otherwise) it's time to stop driving:

1. The most obvious one: "Stop driving."

2. "OW! You've run over my (select body part from the following: arm, hand, foot, leg, solar plexus, pelvis, ribcage or head)!"

3. "No, Dad...this is the living room. The driveway is about 10 feet to the left and there aren't any flowered curtains around it."

4. "Uh...that's the ditch...and that's the other ditch...and that's the neighbor's mailbox. No, no...I'm not finding fault with you. I'm just pointing these things out because I thought you'd take some interest in them."

5. "No, that's not Angela Lansbury. That's a lamp post. And yes, they DID stop filming "Murder She Wrote" over five years ago!"

6. "Would you please turn Paul Harvey down? I don't want to hear "The Rest of the Story" and neither does the nice state trooper."

7. "So you told the adjuster that you were trying to mix up your Metamucil while driving to the Red Hat Society meeting? Great..."

8. "No, no...I didn't really want that bay window anyway. It looks much nicer with a Buick parked through it, don't you think?"

9. "No, the key doesn't go there...not there either...keep going..."

10. "I think there's a Matlock marathon on TBS...you might miss the episode with Don Knotts!" (This would be a distraction technique, BTW...)

Anyway, I can honestly say that both my parents were/are good drivers. I'm not sure how they came up with me as a child since I set my high school's record for stalling out a clutch car the most times at one stop sign. However, I have driven the New Jersey Turnpike and the Beltway since then, so I think I've proven myself quite well.

I don't really remember when Grandpa Dawson stopped driving, but I remember Grandma's slow demise.

I hope people will get the next reference I'm making - if not, too bad. My grandparents had a 1969 Buick LeSabre (I think...), and it was huge. You could have hauled the defensive line of the Chicago Bears in it and still have room for groceries. Anyway, it was kind of scary when Grandma would get behind the wheel.

Why?

Because she was a little under 5 ft. tall and could barely see over the steering wheel. It was like a scene in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" where this old lady was driving a HUGE car, and she could barely see over the dashboard. The car, meanwhile, was all over the place. That's how Grandma looked when she was driving, but actually, she held out for a while. She didn't drive very far from home, but she could drive to town for groceries and such.

That changed when I came home for my first summer from college. That summer was full of change - I felt like I was more grown up, going to summer school at the University of Iowa. I had a boyfriend that seemed like he was going places, etc. I never really thought about how time changes for other people too.

This was in the summer of 1988, when she was 86 years old.

Look at those numbers. Eighty-six. DAMN! I was already an "oddity" to many of my friends because not only did I live next door to my grandparents, but they were also ALIVE. They could hold conversations...they knew who you were (although grandkids do blend into one big lump of a grandchild and you have to peel away the layers), and they could do a lot of things on their own.

I don't remember much about the incident (as far as when it happened - time of day, weekday or weekend), but I remember she missed the driveway and went into the ditch. I saw the aftermath, but I didn't see the actual incident.

But for Grandma, that incident changed everything.

Grandma was going through macular degeneration, a malady that robs you of your eyesight very slowly. It's a very cruel disease. She gradually lost the ability to read, and even cook for herself and Grandpa over time. The driving incident happened but we could do nothing to bring back her sight. We could only help her learn to live with the condition as it worsened.

It brought down her spirit sometimes, but she managed. As a nuclear family, we did the best we could to help them out - Dad did the most, followed by Ruth, Mom and me. Grocery store trips, doctor visits, outings, and other journeys were more carefully planned than they used to be. The spontaneity was gone as the years progressed, so we could be there for Grandma and Grandpa if they needed anything.

As far as my other two grandparents...my Grandma DuVall never learned how to drive. I'm not sure why, other than it was a control thing on my grandpa's part. Grandpa DuVall's life WAS cars, but oddly enough, he tried to be more careful about his driving when his eyes started to fail him. Toward the end, he depended on people to drive him everywhere as well.

I guess I can see both sides - on one hand, as you get older you want to hang on to youth as much as you can. You want everything to be as normal as possible. You don't want to admit that you're old. All of us feel that way as we age.

But on the other hand, I know I would feel terrible if my vanity and stubbornness hurt someone else. It's a hard compromise, but one that everyone has to seriously look at during their lives.

Meanwhile, what's that life preserver doing hanging off of Grandpa's antenna?

Sudiegirl