Ma and Pa
My Grandma and Grandpa GregoryMy grandparents are in the picture above. They were my mother's parents.
Pa--he was Pa and she was Ma-- was a farmer in his younger days. He never held any other kind of job. And in those days there were no pensions
or retirement benefits. If you had not saved money for your retirement then you were out of luck.
or retirement benefits. If you had not saved money for your retirement then you were out of luck.
When Pa-- I think I was the one who came up with Pa because I couldn't say Grandpa, so naturally, my grandma became Ma-- could no longer farm they had to move in with my family. There were eight other siblings but as it turned out the only place suitable for them to live was with us. I don't ever remember when they didn't live with us.
Finally, toward the end of their lives they did receive an old age pension from the government but it was a piteously small amount. At least it seemed small. I guess for that time maybe it was not as small as it seems now. I think it was something like $20 a month. It did help but not a lot.
The bad part of the whole deal was that my grandma and Grandpa were sort of separated. So they had to have two bed rooms. That made it very unhandy for our family. We three kids could not have our own rooms. We had to double up and share rooms and space.
I remember the inconvenience of three generations living under one roof. So I have determined that I will never live with either of my two children. It will be a nursing home for me when I can't live alone. I prefer death to a nursing home but then, my mother said the same thing. She did not get her wish. She lived in a nursing home for seven years before she died.
My grandparents have been gone for many, many years. And now my mother and Dad are also gone. I still hope and pray that when I am unable to care for myself that God will take me home!
posted by kyra lafain @ 8/02/2009 12:30:00 PM
1 Comments:
I know that nursing homes are not the ideal solution; however, there are some really good ones out there. Lanny's grandmother was very fortunate because the home she was in was very clean and the people there were very accomodating. They always had activities for the residents (although Nellie never wanted to participate)...they truly seemed to care...it wasn't just a job for most of the employees.
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