Beyond Our Understanding

Margaret Moore, a 77 year old grandmother, she works, shops, cleans her home, and is constantly on the go at all times. She has always been extremely active and involved in her family’s lives and has sacrificed everything for their happiness.  She has been married to the same man for 58 years “short years” as she would say. She raised two daughters of her own who are now the ages of 55 and 48 and in addition to those girls has also raised a boy who was like a son to her. As a result of these children she now has 5 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren who she is constantly “spoiling”.

Margaret has worked for Kroger her entire life. Beginning as a cashier while her husband was in the navy and then taking a leave of absence when she began to have children. Every day she cleaned her home, made breakfast, lunch and supper for her family, prepared her children for school the next day, and then put them all to bed. Then once they were all asleep she continued to work. She would vacuum the house, iron clothes that had been washed, wash the dirty dishes in the sink, and do anything and everything else that no one realized needed to be completed. Margaret was trained at a very young age that if you work hard your reward will be great. She grew up in a family that owned a tobacco farm and would sit in fields with 100 degree temperature all day picking tobacco. She also dropped out of high school to help take care of her sick parents. All her life she never knew what it was like to not work so when the time finally came to for her to retire she decided to go for it and she hated it. She was constantly bored needing activity; she needed something to do with her hands. According to Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development she is in the Ego-integrity vs. Despair stage. Erikson’s Positive outcome is: “Sense of unity in life’s accomplishment” and his negative outcome is: “regret over lost opportunities of life”. Margaret definitely takes great pride in her life accomplishments and the accomplishments of her family as well.  One thing she struggles with is her inability to accomplish and complete the things that she used to do. She has taken a few hard falls within the past 6 years that have really slowed her down. One incident in particular she fell while working at Kroger. She crushed her right shoulder completely and since then she has gone through much physical therapy and rehabilitation but still has never been able to regain full mobility and use of that arm. And this has continued to be an aggravation to her. “Approximately 20% to 40% of community-dwelling individuals older than 65 yr fall every year, and about one half of those who fall repeatedly do so” (Rantakokko, M., Mänty, M., & Rantanen, T., 2012, 19-25).  This has recently started becoming a constant concern for Margaret.

Although according to the stages of life, Margaret is in the very old age stage, she still continues to shop, clean, cook, and live her life to the fullest as if she were 50 years old. Throughout the article in Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews they continuously relate mobility decline to the bodies deterioration over time. Sadly I can see this being a major factor in the reasoning behind Margaret’s fall.  Although she may think it was because the floor was uneven when in reality it was caused by her inability to balance herself. “To prevent disability, it is important to identify people who are not yet disabled but who are at risk for disability progression in the near future. For this purpose, knowledge of the progression of the mobility limitation is important.” (Rantakokko, M., Mänty, M., & Rantanen, T., 2012, 19-25) Margaret may not be at this point yet but it is vital that she realizes she has limits. I think this interview has opened my eyes to not only see that our life flies by but that our bodies, and minds are so intricately designed and made that it is beyond our understanding. Margaret is one special, happy, content lady: “I love God and I am ready to go home whenever He is ready to take me.”