Busy, Happy Retirement

I have just read the saddest article on the Commentary page: “The Indignity of Being Old,” by Bernice Balfour (Dec. 13). I regret that she sees the glass of life as empty. I also am widowed, elderly and alone, and I see life as full. There is so much for older people to do. We are fortunate to live in a community that offers unlimited scope for activity and enjoyment.

Yes, seniors are sometimes discriminated against, and I even had small stones thrown at me by young boys once. But we are also discriminated for. We can go to the movies cheaper, stay at hotels cheaper, take classes cheaper, often travel cheaper.

Here’s what I do for fun: take exercise classes, Spanish classes, drawing and watercolor classes. Since I retired my life is focused on art and it is a new and exciting life. I periodically do a bit of volunteer teaching. I enjoy travel, and typically take a couple of trips a year besides traveling to see my children and grandchildren, all of whom live at a distance. I go to the movies, to concerts, to the theater, I meet friends for dinner. I love to cook. I continue to do as much of my own work as I have strength for. There are too few hours in the day and the weeks fly by.

Well, I’m lucky. I am reasonably healthy (Balfour was on target about some nursing homes), and thank goodness I was born an optimist and hope to die one.

I’d like to tell Ms. Balfour to lighten up, smile your way along the street and see how many answering smiles you pick up. Life is to live, not to regret.

SUSAN CODDINGTON

Pacific Palisades

Balfour needs to be informed that nurses are not “threatening” patients with “intravenous feedings” when they are unable to take oral fluids.

Health care providers are faced with three choices with such patients: 1) Start an IV, 2) Insert a tube from the nose into the stomach, or 3) Allow the patient to die from dehydration. Since No. 3 is not an option in any hospital I have worked in for the past 21 years, that leaves 1 or 2. To inform a patient of that fact is not to “threaten.”

Balfour needs to lighten up and be grateful-- I have also seen a lot of people never get the chance to reach old age.

DIANE LEVY RN

Palm Desert