Reduced to Tears

This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help retirees, those soon to retire, baby boomers, and seniors reinvent themselves in this new stage of their lives called retirement. Her blog, public lecture, and new self-help book on senior reinvention are titled: Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy Excitement, and Purpose After You Retire. Her memoir is: Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class. Synopses of her books follow her blog below. Both books are available at Amazon.com by clicking here and here. Her website is: LeeGaleGruen.com

Now, on to my blog:

Have you ever been out and about doing your thing, and you see someone or a group of someones who move you unexpectedly and intensely? Such a situation is usually unanticipated. It might tap into something very personal for you and even reduce you to instant tears, a disconcerting feeling.

What do you do in such an event? Do you stare unabashedly as the scene unfolds? Do you look away and sneak furtive glances? Do you approach and attempt to engage the person or persons in conversation? Do you repay them in some way for “making your day”? Do you castigate them for ruining your day?

I had such a situation happen to me recently. However, I was the mover not the movee. I have an adult, developmentally disabled daughter, and we were at a local, fast-food restaurant sitting at a table on the patio eating hamburgers. My daughter, always chatty, was commenting and asking questions about everything and everyone, especially the other customers.

“What is that man eating, Mom?”

She pointed to a young man dressed in a shirt and tie sitting alone at a table next to ours.

“It looks like a hamburger, the same as we have.”

I told her that we should not disturb him and just let him enjoy his lunch. She didn’t say anymore on the matter, but she continued to stare at his fascinating cuisine.

The object of her interest finally finished eating while we were about halfway through our meal, and he got up and left. A short time later, I noticed him coming out of the restaurant. He then walked directly up to us, placed a plastic card on the table that had the name of the restaurant on it, and said, “Here, this is for you.”

I looked at the man and told him I didn’t understand. He answered, “I want you to have this. It’s for free meals the next time you come.”

I thought he might work there, but I still couldn’t fathom why he was giving us the gift card, so I questioned him further about it. He went on to explain the reason for his gift. He had been observing my daughter and me, and he was very moved by our interaction. He had a special needs sister whom he had not seen for over a year, and he missed her very much.

The man was wearing a Covid mask, but I could tell that he was holding back tears behind the face covering. We had obviously struck a chord in him, and his only way of showing appreciation and connecting with us was to buy us a gift card. I knew that the kindness on my part would be to accept his offering, which seemed to mean a lot to him.

“Thank you very much. We’ll definitely come back and use it.”

Our benefactor acted eager to leave; I think he was dismayed and embarrassed by his show of emotion. He probably never imagined that one minute he would be casually eating his lunch and the next minute he would be breaking down in public like that.

I had a similar scenario happen to me many years ago. I was at a park with a friend. He had to get something from the car, so I was just sitting on the blanket waiting for him. I noticed a man and a young child at the small creek nearby. He was holding her under her arms while he skipped her feet from stone to stone as she giggled. It was apparent that the small girl with the perky, blond ponytail was severely handicapped. My friend returned a few minutes later to find me sobbing uncontrollably. It had tapped into my role as the mother of a disabled child which I’d been managing to handle with great fortitude.

Sometimes, unplanned encounters act upon us so suddenly and with such force that we lose control. They access deep emotions that we’ve been suppressing. The surprise element hits us before we can muster our defenses, and the feelings burst forth on their own accord. It is nothing to be ashamed of. We all have profound sensibilities which we have buried and which sometimes spring to the surface despite our best efforts. View it as a blessing and not a curse; it’s okay to be human.

Photo credit: vastateparksstaff on VisualHunt

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SYNOPSES OF BOOKS BY:  LEE GALE GRUEN

Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy, Excitement, and Purpose After You Retire (self-help): Not a one-size-fits-all approach, this self-help book for retirees, those soon to retire, baby boomers, and seniors offers an individualized, detailed guide to assist readers in discovering activities and pursuits in this new stage of their lives called retirement, based on their own likes and comfort level. I learned the secret the hard way transitioning from retired probation officer to actress, author, public speaker, and blogger. Audience members at my lectures on senior reinvention requested a book on the subject. This is the result, and it contains the content of those talks and six years of posts from this blog. CLICK here TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON.COM.

Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class (memoir): After retiring at age 60 from my 37-year career as a probation officer, I mistakenly enrolled in an acting class for seniors.  A few weeks later, my mother died, and I invited my grieving, 85-year-old father to come to class with me.  This is the true story of our magical journey attending that class together for three years, bonding more than ever.  I wrote the comedy scenes we performed onstage twice a year in the acting class showcases, and all six scenes are included in the book.  I eventually transitioned into the world of professional acting.  As my fledgling, second career started going uphill, my dad’s health started going downhill.  I would recount to him each of my new experiences while I sat beside his bed at the nursing home where he resided in his final years. CLICK here TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON.COM.

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Please forward my blog in its entirety to anyone who might be interested and post it on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts. To reprint any material, contact me for permission at: gowergulch@yahoo.com. If you want to be automatically notified when I post a new blog, click on the “Follow” button in the upper right corner of this page and fill in the information. To read my other blog posts, scroll down on this page or click on “Recent Posts” or “Archives” under the Follow button. To opt out of receiving this blog, contact me at the aforementioned email address, let me know, and I’ll remove you from the list.

Coat Hangers

This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help retirees, those soon to retire, baby boomers, and seniors reinvent themselves in this new stage of their lives called retirement. Her blog, public lecture, and new self-help book on senior reinvention are titled: Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy Excitement, and Purpose After You Retire. Her memoir is: Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class. Synopses of her books follow her blog below. Both books are available at Amazon.com by clicking here and here. Her website is: LeeGaleGruen.com

Now, on to my blog:

Our laws just significantly reversed course on abortion. The United States Supreme Court recently allowed to stand, pending litigation, a new law in the state of Texas restricting abortions after six weeks of pregnancy (a controversial time when a fetal heartbeat supposedly can be detected), a point when some women don’t even know they’re pregnant. That time delay as the matter slowly wends its way through the lower courts will be too slow for many women currently seeking abortions in Texas, a procedure that is time sensitive with a short expiration date.

Texas politicians used a clever trick incorporated into their law by banning state enforcement of illegal wrongdoing, instead authorizing private citizens to file civil suits against those “aiding and abetting” an abortion. Lyft and Uber, the major ride sharing companies, have announced that they will pay the legal fees of their drivers who are sued for such an act–abracadabra, from driver to aider-and-abettor while just trying to support themselves and their families.

If successful in court, plaintiffs will stand to profit by 10,000 big ones–a pretty good incentive to become tattletales. Right-to-life advocates have started the ball rolling to control the bodies of the entire United States population of fertile females.

Now in Texas and coming soon to other copycat states, friends, foes, spouses, children, parents, siblings, neighbors, strangers, or any other human residing in that fair state will be able to secure recompense from a civil court by outing an act of assisting an abortion. Websites have even been created for the right-minded to post tip-offs on potential offenders who might violate this shiny, new law. Such laws enable the proliferation of that ancient and profitable profession: bounty hunter, particularly popular 150 years ago in the Old West of our glorious country.

I wonder if such an outcome would survive the legal tests if the bodies in question belonged to men. For example, if a state passed a law that an adult male must undergo a vasectomy prior to sexual congress with a female who chooses not to become pregnant, might there be an uproar heard from the Pacific to the Atlantic as well as non-contiguous states and territories? Hey, fellas, it’s no big deal. If you eventually decide you want your own progeny, vasectomies are reversible, or you can become a bona fide daddy via artificial insemination using your own little gene carriers.

Pregnant women themselves cannot be sued under the new Texas law for seeking an abortion. However, they will be hard-pressed to find competent assistance to do so. Do these decision makers and passers-of-laws really think that their new restrictive, abortion law will prevent women from having abortions? Do they really believe that women will not turn to whatever means available to prevent delivering an unwanted child?

The truth is that woman will do what they did historically. Those few with the means will decamp to other states or countries where abortion is legal. Those many without the means will clandestinely seek abortions in unsterile conditions with locations accessed through back alley entrances and run by self-taught practitioners. Or, they might revert to the trusty, do-it-yourself method using a wire coat hanger as their medical instrument of choice. Such procedures, of course, will result in many more deaths of said rebel females. Well, maybe those oh-so-wise legislators believe that’s just collateral damage as they put all their efforts into the rights of the unborn, only to walk away from such support once that child is birthed.

Is this the first step of American women going the way of Afghani women: back into the house under the total control of men? Is that what we want to do to fifty percent of our productive population? That will not only push women into the dark ages again but our entire country as well.

This blog is most often directed to retirees, baby boomers, and seniors, a demographic rarely faced with having to seek abortions. Why should they care? Well, because, they have children and grandchildren who might be impacted.

Life is sacred. Each new birth should be cherished, nurtured, and supported. If a woman has decided she is unable or unwilling to do those things, shouldn’t she be the one to make that decision instead of some self-appointed, parental figure who “knows best”?

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SYNOPSES OF BOOKS BY:  LEE GALE GRUEN

Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy, Excitement, and Purpose After You Retire (self-help): Not a one-size-fits-all approach, this self-help book for retirees, those soon to retire, baby boomers, and seniors offers an individualized, detailed guide to assist readers in discovering activities and pursuits in this new stage of their lives called retirement, based on their own likes and comfort level. I learned the secret the hard way transitioning from retired probation officer to actress, author, public speaker, and blogger. Audience members at my lectures on senior reinvention requested a book on the subject. This is the result, and it contains the content of those talks and six years of posts from this blog. CLICK here TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON.COM.

Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class (memoir): After retiring at age 60 from my 37-year career as a probation officer, I mistakenly enrolled in an acting class for seniors.  A few weeks later, my mother died, and I invited my grieving, 85-year-old father to come to class with me.  This is the true story of our magical journey attending that class together for three years, bonding more than ever.  I wrote the comedy scenes we performed onstage twice a year in the acting class showcases, and all six scenes are included in the book.  I eventually transitioned into the world of professional acting.  As my fledgling, second career started going uphill, my dad’s health started going downhill.  I would recount to him each of my new experiences while I sat beside his bed at the nursing home where he resided in his final years. CLICK here TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON.COM.

***

Please forward my blog in its entirety to anyone who might be interested and post it on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts. To reprint any material, contact me for permission at: gowergulch@yahoo.com. If you want to be automatically notified when I post a new blog, click on the “Follow” button in the upper right corner of this page and fill in the information. To read my other blog posts, scroll down on this page or click on “Recent Posts” or “Archives” under the Follow button. To opt out of receiving this blog, contact me at the aforementioned email address, let me know, and I’ll remove you from the list.