As predicted, the doctor told me I have high cholesterol. I tend to do something drastic after these appointments. One time I bought an elliptical exercise machine. I used it every day until we moved, and I got out of the habit. After the appointment in January I became a member of a gym. After two months of never going I canceled just before the pandemic closed the gyms down anyway. I ate better during Lent but started eating chocolate around Mother’s Day and ten pounds later it’s still hard to stop. I always told myself that I would not exercise or watch my diet until I turned forty and now that middle age is here, changing habits is harder than I anticipated.
I called Uncle Jerry, Dad’s youngest brother, to find out if there is any family history of high cholesterol. We first started talking after Dad died and he has been a wealth of information about the side of my family that I grew up without. He said that high blood pressure runs in our family and related the following anecdote which has been passed down through the family.
His grandmother, my great grandmother, Zilpha Jane Benham Krewson had high blood pressure and took medication for it. In February of 1955, there was a grand public affair held in Coos Bay, Oregon. Zilpha wanted to look her best, and when she saw the hat of her dreams in a store window, she knew she had to have it. Great grandpa Ernie was a logger and provided a good but modest income which probably had little discretionary money. Zilpha had charge of their finances, and she chose the hat over her blood pressure medicine.
From my affluent life sixty-five years later, it’s hard to understand what would motivate the choice of a hat over medication. Maybe she felt so good after years on the medication that she thought she could skip some doses without consequence. Perhaps she had done this kind of trade off before. I don’t believe she had in mind the devastation that her premature death could cause, the way that her children would have to struggle to take care of great grandpa Earnie while dealing with deep grief. Her grandchildren’s desire decades later that they hadn’t been denied the memories of their grandmother that would have been. I may feel a disconnect with a great grandmother who died decades before I was born, but the pain of her premature death echoes through the generations.
When I first heard the story, I interpreted it in a more romantic way. In my imagination Zilpha saw the hat and knew that it would make her the most beautiful lady in town, and she was not wrong. Whether or not she was able to wear it to the event, where she would have been the most admired woman in her circle, the joy from buying the hat lasted for the rest of her life. She died a few days later from a stroke February 6, 1955. She was fifty-nine years old.
When I told my version of the story to my kids, they all responded, “Bad decision!”
Zilpha’s husband and five children would agree. Great grandpa Ernest was devastated. His three daughters and two sons worked together to take care of him for the next thirteen years.
Great grandma Zilpha’s story resonates with me. After seeing Mom suffer with chronic illness for so many years and being with her in her last days, I would rather die in any other way than kidney failure. If I knew I would die happy, I too would be tempted to choose the hat.
In the Litany of Supplication during the Divine Liturgy every Sunday we pray, “That the end of our lives may be Christian, without pain, blameless, and peaceful, and for a good account before the fearful judgment seat of Christ, let us ask of the Lord.”
We pray for a peaceful death, but we don’t get to choose how it will come about. The lack of exercise and poor diet that contributes to high cholesterol that can lead to a heart attack also leads to diabetes and a host of other chronic conditions. Some strokes are quick, but others are debilitating. Mom had diabetes and blood sugar issues run in the family. My blood sugar numbers were in the high normal range, not bad enough for the doctor to mention it but a red flag for me.
Not taking care of myself wouldn’t be the blameless end we pray for. I’m taking something herbal for the cholesterol. In three months if nothing has improved, I’ll start taking something stronger. The doctor says that diet and exercise are the most important factors. Somehow, I need to convince myself that I am the kind of person who takes her health seriously. I don’t want the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren to look at my life choices and say, “Bad decision.”
I called Uncle Jerry, Dad’s youngest brother, to find out if there is any family history of high cholesterol. We first started talking after Dad died and he has been a wealth of information about the side of my family that I grew up without. He said that high blood pressure runs in our family and related the following anecdote which has been passed down through the family.
His grandmother, my great grandmother, Zilpha Jane Benham Krewson had high blood pressure and took medication for it. In February of 1955, there was a grand public affair held in Coos Bay, Oregon. Zilpha wanted to look her best, and when she saw the hat of her dreams in a store window, she knew she had to have it. Great grandpa Ernie was a logger and provided a good but modest income which probably had little discretionary money. Zilpha had charge of their finances, and she chose the hat over her blood pressure medicine.
From my affluent life sixty-five years later, it’s hard to understand what would motivate the choice of a hat over medication. Maybe she felt so good after years on the medication that she thought she could skip some doses without consequence. Perhaps she had done this kind of trade off before. I don’t believe she had in mind the devastation that her premature death could cause, the way that her children would have to struggle to take care of great grandpa Earnie while dealing with deep grief. Her grandchildren’s desire decades later that they hadn’t been denied the memories of their grandmother that would have been. I may feel a disconnect with a great grandmother who died decades before I was born, but the pain of her premature death echoes through the generations.
When I first heard the story, I interpreted it in a more romantic way. In my imagination Zilpha saw the hat and knew that it would make her the most beautiful lady in town, and she was not wrong. Whether or not she was able to wear it to the event, where she would have been the most admired woman in her circle, the joy from buying the hat lasted for the rest of her life. She died a few days later from a stroke February 6, 1955. She was fifty-nine years old.
When I told my version of the story to my kids, they all responded, “Bad decision!”
Zilpha’s husband and five children would agree. Great grandpa Ernest was devastated. His three daughters and two sons worked together to take care of him for the next thirteen years.
Great grandma Zilpha’s story resonates with me. After seeing Mom suffer with chronic illness for so many years and being with her in her last days, I would rather die in any other way than kidney failure. If I knew I would die happy, I too would be tempted to choose the hat.
In the Litany of Supplication during the Divine Liturgy every Sunday we pray, “That the end of our lives may be Christian, without pain, blameless, and peaceful, and for a good account before the fearful judgment seat of Christ, let us ask of the Lord.”
We pray for a peaceful death, but we don’t get to choose how it will come about. The lack of exercise and poor diet that contributes to high cholesterol that can lead to a heart attack also leads to diabetes and a host of other chronic conditions. Some strokes are quick, but others are debilitating. Mom had diabetes and blood sugar issues run in the family. My blood sugar numbers were in the high normal range, not bad enough for the doctor to mention it but a red flag for me.
Not taking care of myself wouldn’t be the blameless end we pray for. I’m taking something herbal for the cholesterol. In three months if nothing has improved, I’ll start taking something stronger. The doctor says that diet and exercise are the most important factors. Somehow, I need to convince myself that I am the kind of person who takes her health seriously. I don’t want the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren to look at my life choices and say, “Bad decision.”