Our family has a story about getting dressed for a funeral: My maternal grandfather died at the end of the Depression, and my grandmother had to scrounge to find decent clothes for his open casket funeral. She could not find any shoes without holes in them, and had no money to buy any. Finally my mother found a pair at the back of the closet, in a box, virtually unworn. No memory of these shoes at all. But they took them to the funeral home and they fit, so he was buried in them.
My grandmother remembered about the shoes when she was in church the following Sunday. She started laughing so hard my mother thought she'd gone mad from grief and hustled her out of the church. Grandma said she finally remembered buying the shoes ten years before, when they still had some money. My grandfather had told her he didn't like how they looked and they pinched his toes. His last words on the topic were, "Katie, I wouldn't be caught dead in those shoes!" So my grandmother got the last laugh on him, a rare event.
On the issue of exercise, I have a whole series of exercises given to me by the excellent physical therapy department at Northwest Hospital here in Seattle, years ago when my RA was very active. They are very low impact but good for balance, bone strength, and mobility. Walking is still the best for aerobics, I guess.
But for me the problem is finding the time to focus on all this. By the time I finish everything I'm supposed to do to take care of myself, starting with the eye-drops and balance exercises in the morning, it is time to go to bed again. Who can do all this? I can't. Then you can't sleep for feeling guilty. Oh well, all we can do is just do the best we can.
Genko
