Changing My Life at Age 85

Everybody celebrates my birthday.  On March 17 – St. Patrick’s Day – I will be 85.  On my 80th Don and Mary gave a bang up party, and friends came from all over Texas.  This year will be subdued.  David flies in on Sunday night, and the next day (the 17th) we will have dinner with Don and Mary in the elegant dining room at the new place where I am moving.

Yes, I am moving.  I thought I would live at Montclair Estates until the funeral home wheeled my dead body out on a stretcher.  I have been happy here at Montclair.  I love my two-bedroom, two-bath apartment, and the other residents are dear, dear friends.  . 

I am moving because of something that happened five years ago.  I said something which the black woman who takes me to dialysis thought was insulting.  When I heard she was offended, I apologized profusely.  But she had it in her head that I was a racist, and she has made me pay for it three times a week ever since.  She is one of those Christians who sings gospel hymns and has no compassion.
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After dialysis I sit in the lobby of the dialysis center staring out the window. I dare not look away for even a minute.   The driver insists that I be ready to walk out the door the minute she drives up.  Often she makes me wait thirty to forty minutes.  While waiting I think, “What have I done that I must do this pennace for my sins?”

She drives on the freeway, laughing and joking with her sister on her cell phone.  She never speaks to me.  That’s just bad manners! 

Some days I am really sick after treatments.  I live on the third floor of a building at the back of this apartment complex.  I ask the woman to take me around the complex and let me out only a few steps from the elevator.  She drives up to the front and waits silently for me to get out of the van and struggle to walk down the long, outside passage.  That is cruel.

Several times I have tried to talk about this to the manager.  Before I can say anything, Cindy launches into a tirade, telling me I am selfish and overbearing and deserve the treatment I receive.  “Nobody likes you, Ilene.  You are unkind.”

I know what she says is not true, but it still hurts. 

Last week I was really ill.  Cindy gave me another one of those abusive lectures.  I called David in California and told him about it.  He said, “You don’t have to put up with that, Mom.  You have plenty of money.  Get out ot there!”

The next morning he called back.  He had talked to his sister Martha.  My accountant daughter had calculated how much I could spend each month if I live to age 93.  I was amazed!   Never dreamed I was that wealthy.  Then David said, “Spend it all, Mom.  If you run out of money, remember you have two rich kids.”

I feel blessed.

The next day I gave my notice.  Cindy said, “You are not happy here, Ilene.  You are not a happy person.  You will not be happy anywhere.”


My friends tell this “unkind” person they wish I would not leave.  Sue said, “You can’t go until you find someone to play bridge.”  Dan, our maintenance man, a Tea Party Republican, gave me a hug and said he had been looking forward to arguing with me, a liberal Democrat, before the November election.

I am moving to a luxurious independent living facility where I’ll have a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment with a fancy kitchen with dishwasher and granite counter tops.  Also, space for my own washer and drier.  No more a spending all day Sunday in the second floor laundry room!

Best of all: I am finally going to be living in Dallas.