06-20-2016, 01:20 PM
In any case, you certainly have my sympathy. The nursing home appears to be one of the inevitable features of our societal evolution, where nuclear families have become very small, mobility is such that families don't stay around in the same area together, and medicine has advanced to the point where we can keep the "machine" running long after it has any useful purpose.
Back when my great-grandmother was widowed, around the turn of the 19th --> 20th century, she had six grown children to depend on. She wasn't happy about it, but still, was able to move from one to the other for the remainder of her life, not burden unduly any one of her children's families, and not have to endure the cruel, useless monotony of a "home."
Contrast that with my grandmother, a Missionary. She outlived her two children and her husband. We grandchildren all moved away and she melted down and finally died alone in a "home" at 97.
Back when my great-grandmother was widowed, around the turn of the 19th --> 20th century, she had six grown children to depend on. She wasn't happy about it, but still, was able to move from one to the other for the remainder of her life, not burden unduly any one of her children's families, and not have to endure the cruel, useless monotony of a "home."
Contrast that with my grandmother, a Missionary. She outlived her two children and her husband. We grandchildren all moved away and she melted down and finally died alone in a "home" at 97.
[font=Arial Black]... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition.[/font]