The Pyrrhic Mother

I talked to my grandmother today.  She is supposed to go in tomorrow to get scar tissue removed from her eyes so that she can have cataract surgery… she’s talking about not going because, while she has good eye care coverage, the prescription drops for after the surgery are supposed to cost $90 a bottle, and she doesn’t have more than medicare scrip coverage, so they’re basically out of pocket for the whole cost.  I told her she needs to go get her eyes done, and if she needs money for the meds to call me.   Of course, she tells me this after I had already told her that my mother had called me almost hysterical (my mother is good at hysterical) because her car was overheating and they’ve cut my brother’s hours at Target again, so his last paycheck was barely $300 (which is sad considering his hourly rate is $15 an hour as their head of security), so I wired her $200 to get her thermostat fixed.  *sigh*

So my grandmother starts lecturing me on the fact that I cannot save the world.  And, because she’s 80 years old, I let her lecture me.  She’s earned the right at her age to lecture pretty much anyone on just about anything.   But I still told her, that while I might not be able to save the world, I can save as many people in it as I can… and if that means occasionally throwing money at a problem that is immediate and necessary, well, then that is what I will do as long as I have it.  I don’t always have it, but I have it frequently… so I do what I can.  My mother needs a functional car, my grandmother needs to be able to see, people need food to survive.

Why I feel driven right now to save the world, I cannot tell.  Most of the time I just throw my figurative hands up in disgust and lament the lack of humanity in the world.  I ignore the news and bury my facebook feed in silly memes and funny ecards.  Right now though, I just feel like I need to do something to make myself feel better about this world I live in that is so far from the world I want to live in.