September 26, 2026
A few weeks ago I ran across a couple of VHS tapes that held some scenes from my niece Kirsten’s early years. Like, waaaaaaaaay early years. These were some old video tapes I had inherited from my mother. When my brother became a father for the first time, he felt inclined to video tape every moment of his wife’s hospital stay after the delivery. While one of the tapes covered the first few days of the girl’s life, the other displayed my little, eighteen-month-old niece playing in the park with her parents. One of the tapes even had a strapping 25-year-old, handsome young man in it. Oh yea, that was me, by the way. Even though I watched both of the tapes in their entirety, I wasn’t sure how many more hours of my life I wanted to devote to watching my niece getting her first diaper change, especially since she’s 37 now. With that in mind, I texted my sister-in-law Colleen and asked her if she wanted the old VHS tapes. I informed her that I had entered the point of my life where I want to throw out everything that I don’t feel a future need for, and hearing that thought she informed me that she’d take the tapes off of my hands.
Since my brother passed away five years ago, my sister-in-law has been living with her mother Barbra about ten miles or so from my house, and since I was out and about for the other day, I dropped by to give her the VHS tapes. When I arrived at her front door she was chatting away with one of my nephews. Colleen and my brother had three kids and now have six grandkids. Although her closest kids live an hour and half up in Oklahoma, she keeps in constant contact with them, and rarely do I ever go to her house when she’s not talking to at least one of her kids. I find this a nice contrast to my wife Margaret who might go six months without talking to her kids, even though both of them live less than twenty miles away.
When my brother was alive, I would occasionally pop by their house, but I rarely talked much to Colleen. To be truthful, my brother was usually buried so deep into his phone I rarely ever talked to him. I swear, there were plenty of times when I stopped by for a visit, but my bro was so caught up in all the latest mound of political BS that I don’t think that he even realized that I was there. These days though, every time I pop by Colleen’s house, I’m usually there for a good hour just taking in all the joys of senior conversation.
What do I mean by senior conversation? Well, these topics usually fall around the subject of, “My bad cholesterol may be up, but I’m still wondering about my good cholesterol. I think my blood pressure is causing my headaches.” And there’s the ever popular, “How’s your hip feeling? Do you still think it needs to be replaced?” After an hour or so of these uplifting senior tidbits of discussion I finally blurted out, “Geez girl! We sound like a couple of old people!” Colleen is actually a year and half older than me, so I let her ramble on concerning her aches and pains more than mine. In such a case seniority tends to rule.
That particular day I arrived around noon, and Colleen’s mother hadn’t gotten out of bed for the day. At ninety-one the lady doesn’t tend to rise until early afternoon. Indeed, I remember that lifestyle myself, but I experienced such in my teen years. Sometimes I truly miss those days. The woman finally did rise for the day, but after she took a seat in the living room she drifted off to sleep again. I have to admit that such a life sounds a bit appealing. Just last night I couldn’t get to sleep until after one in the morning and found myself wide awake this morning at seven. Somehow sixteen hours of sleep in a day sounds kind of fun.
I’ve known Colleen’s mom Barbra since I was in college, and she’s always been a super sweet lady. What I’ve always found a bit strange though was how the lady enjoyed a few cigarettes and a daily beer until she was up into her late eighties. By the time Barbra had turned ninety years old Colleen was overjoyed that she had weened her mother away from both cigarettes and beer. Hearing this all I could think was, “Gee, the woman is ninety! If she wants to smoke and drink, let her!” I may be a bit over zealous here, but I feel that once you’ve reached the nine-decade milestone, you’re entitled to do whatever the heck you want! The woman should be able to shoot heroin if she chooses! Okay, that might be a bit extreme and probably a whole lot harder to find than cigarettes and beer, although I have known a few unsavory characters in my life. It’s just a thought.
When we weren’t analyzing every ache and pain in every joint and muscle in our body, we carried on the regular elder adult talk while bouncing around the topics of kids, grandkids, and how much longer was she planning to keep working fulltime. Of course, there’s always the fun question concerning how much longer we figured that we’d both might be alive. Yea, old people stuff. Then the topic turned to politics, and for a few seconds I nearly thought my brother had come back from the dead and entered the room. That guy loved talking politics. The problem with him though was that he also loved telling me how stupid I was if I didn’t agree with everything pearl of social and political wisdom that left his mouth. In all reality, he tended to carry that attitude regardless of the subject. Then again, I suppose that’s what older brothers are supposed to do.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve found a lot of enjoyment in these little catch-up chats with my sister-in-law. My social anxiety only allows me to stop by someone’s place when I actually have purpose to be there. I’m not one to just show up for the heck of it. Occasionally I’ll come over when there’s a family get together at Colleen’s place, but during those times her house is generally full of kids and grandkids which means I rarely get a chance to talk to her. I’m usually hearing about my nephews’ latest jobs or joining in the discussion concerning the last rock concert we’ve been to. With that being said, I do enjoy the time when I pop by Colleen’s house and we can just sit down and throw out all our views on anything we deem important for the moment. I always figured I’d spend my retirement days talking about old rock bands and cool stuff like that. However, every time I’m around someone close to my age the subject usually falls along the lines of how Osteo Bi-Flex has does wonders from my creaking knees. Gee, what have I become?
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