Seniors in love

My grandfather, a widower of 2 years, has a new girlfriend.

Her name is Michelle, and they met at the Shady Pines nursing home (okay, I don't know what it's called, but if it's good enough for Sophia Partillo, it's good enough for my ole grand-dad) and he actually tried to marry her. Fortunately, they were both taken to court and declared too incompetent for marriage - how I wonder why they don't put more celebrities through that gauntlet - so now they have to be content only to comfort one another, in the nursing home, for the rest of their limited days. Sometimes he puts her on when we call, and she whispers into the receiver "don't cho worry, I'm takin' good o your granpaa". What care? They live in a freaking home! All comforts provided for...except... you know, I get the terrifying suspicion that it's not just the kind of cup-of-tea-and-a-slice-of-fresh-apple-pie sort of comfort they are engaged in: I think they might be having S.E.X!

The idea of a sagging sack of osteoporotic, wheezened flesh that my grandfather has come to inhabit, playing hide the salami with another tooth-less, immobile med-popper, behind the pulled curtain of a gated hospital bed makes my skin crawl. Blessedly, there seems to be a mental block firmly in place preventing my imagination from actually imaging all the gory details - the Hindi film board in my mind sort of covers everything with mist and sets the lawnmower off in the distance so I don't catch any stray moaning. Nevertheless, my parents, ewww; my grandparents, criminal! And Aristotle agrees with me on this point too: he wrote in his Essays that woman should get no hanky panky past menopause, and men should give up the snake and mongoose game between the ages of 45-55. And you know, I kind of thought all the old people were on the boat with this one as well. I mean, if you can repeat the same, lame mantra of "whoa, grandpa's gotta sit down for a minute kids, I ain't as young as I used to be" to get out of playing soccer with your adolescent in-laws, then where do you get off being all bow-jiji-bow in the bedroom?

Isn't sex was a right reserved exclusively for those with hot,steamy bods whom the thought of inspires sexy thoughts worthy of menage e moi action in other similarly sexy peoples? People like this per say:



and this


However, according to the CMAJ, 70% of couples over age 70 still have "intercourse" an average of 4 times a month. So, regardless of their wrinkly-ness, most seniors still claim the rights of most couch-humping teenagers on a not entirely infrequent basis. Sexuality is also a very reliable predictor of morbidity in the elderly as well, cause when you loose the urge to Uh! the will to live tends to follow closely behind. So I suppose I should be happy that my grandda is still a horny bastard, because that means he'll live many more full and wonderful years...in a nursing home. Though that thought is thoroughly depressing, I am meant to be happy that my grandfather, despite being a bit insane, is able to share goodtimes with this woman, and that despite being in that eight layer of hell reserved especially for nursing home residents, he is basically happy as a Frenchman living next to a brothel.

Eventually, I hope to get over the grossness and just be happy for them. But eeeww, damn.