Lessons my mother taught me without saying a word: #1 - Mobility = Independence

Ugh. Just finished the first week of a cardio interval step class at the campus rec center and discovered that my toilet is too low.

After class, my usually brisk walk home has turned into a struggled stroll through the snow-covered sidewalks. My thigh muscles scream as I ease onto and off of the couch but going for my 1940s toilet requires the kind of squats I couldn’t get anywhere near in class. Pain and urgency – HELP! I've squatted and I can't get up!

Since the class is on campus you are correct to assume the majority of participants are 12 --- OK, 20 something (same thing).

You are also correct that their trendy spandex stretches only so far --- around their already toned bodies --- not mine. I’m the one in the back row in men’s sweats and an oversized t-shirt down to my knees. Hey, every class needs a Frump Model. I’m helping everyone else in class with their self-esteem.

I exercise for two reasons:

1.     I’m afraid of losing my mobility, and

2.     I’m afraid of not turning into my mother.

At 95, she runs --- not walks --- on her walker throughout her managed care neighborhood. I have a newspaper front-page feature photo of her here on my desk. She’s in her 70s with her leg in the air nearly over her head during a Tai Chi class.

Once she retired from running around after four children, she swam three times a week, rode her exercise bike 10 minutes every morning while singing hymns, played shuffle board, and walked all over town to pay her bills --- because why waste the postage stamp? Let’s not even get started on lawn care, snow shoveling, or just about everything else she did to stay busy.

Her independence depended on two things:

1.     Her physical mobility, and

2.     Her driver’s license.

Collectively, they were freedom and independence.

Until while in her early 80s, the earlier symptoms of dementia --- memory loss and confusion --- led to two auto accidents where no one else was hurt but the time had come to surrender the driver’s license. *

Depression quickly followed as did further decline into dementia. Her freedom, her independence had been yanked out from under her. I felt them and understood fully how stranded, powerless, even valueless she felt. I never get into my car now without understanding that while I still have another good 20 years at least, this privilege is going to be lost by necessity eventually --- and with it, my independence.

Fortunately, she’s still running strong on her walker and swimming once a week. So, while I may be late coming to the whole value of exercise lesson (She was a childhood athlete, I was not. Enough said), she modeled fitness very well.

I’ll always have her hips. Just as long as I can have her health as well.

Lesson learned.

*     Michigan has a program that allows non-family members such as family doctors to make recommendations for the state to reexamine an individual who’s driving may now be of concern. This program takes the burden off of family members from confronting the issue with elderly family members and redirects the anger away from the family as well. You may have to find another doctor but family relationships are preserved.

Michigan Secretary of State – Senior Drivers in Michigan

What lessons have your elders taught you without saying a word?