[Being Mortal]: #3 Dependence

 

• As fewer of us are struck dead out of the blue, most of us will spend significant periods of our lives too reduced and debilitated to live independently.
  • be struck dead: to be killed suddenly and unexpectedly
    • A bolt of lightning struck him dead.
  • out of the blue
  • too - to
    • 기존에 알던거: He is too young to drive.
    • They left the meeting / too frustrated to continue the discussion.
    • She entered the room too tired to speak.
    • I found the box too heavy to lift.
    • He is not old enough to drive.
      • That was all it took to sever the thread between them.
        • That was all it took (to ~)→ “~하는 데 필요한 건 그것뿐이었다”
        • 예: That was all it took to make her cry.
          (그것만으로도 그녀를 울게 만들기에 충분했다.)
      
      
      • Before the issue was forced, they got a reprieve.
        • reprieve:
          • v) to delay the punishment of (someone, such as a condemned prisoner)
          • n) a cancellation or postponement of a punishment.
       
      
      
      • Eventually, the crisis they dreaded arrived.
      •  
• ALICE HOBSON HAD something very much like the same dread of leaving her home.
• It was the one place where she felt she belonged and remained in charge of her life.
  
  • remained in charge of: to continue to have control over or responsibility for someone or something

 

• As I watched the aftermath, I gradually began to understand the reasons why—and they were reasons that bring into question our entire system of care for the dependent and debilitated.
  
  • aftermath: 여파

 

• Prosperity has enabled even the poor to expect nursing homes with square meals, professional health services, physical therapy, and bingo.
  • 여기서 bingo가 나온 이유!!! : 미국 대중문화에서 *“노인 = 빙고”*라는 이미지가 고착되어 있습니다. 영화, 드라마, 책에서도 노인들이 모여 빙고를 즐기는 장면이 자주 나오죠. 그래서 bingo라는 단어 자체가 곧 노년층의 오락을 상징하는 아이콘처럼 쓰이기도 합니다.

 

• They’ve eased (debility and old age) for millions and /made proper care and safety a norm to an extent that the inmates of poorhouses could not imagine. (they: nursing home 같은 애들은 / ease 하게 한다/ debility와 old age를 , 그리고 
  • eased : made less severe, difficult, or painful, or became less intense
  • made proper care and safety a norm: 헐, made A B : A를 B로 만들었음
  • inmates: 수감자, 병원 입원한 사람들 

 

• Alice’s quarters enabled her to have the comforts of her old home in a safer, more manageable situation.
  • refers to a place where people live in a group arrangement. It is often used to distinguish nursing home residents from people living in private, standalone households
• having a place that genuinely feels like your home can seem as essential to a person as water to a fish.
  • This movie is not as good as I expected.
    
• “If I die tomorrow, I’ve had a damn good life. I’ve done everything I could do, and I’ve done everything I ever wanted to do.”
  • 그냥 멋져서 나도 이렇게 말하고 살아야져 

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• Jim and Nan hired a part-time aide named Mary to help Alice comply, to give her some company, and to stave off the day she would have to transfer.
  • to stave off: avert or delay something bad or dangerous."a reassuring presence can stave off a panic attack" /prevent, avoid

• She liked Mary. But having her hanging around the apartment for hours on end, often with little to do, only made the situation more depressing.
  
  • for hours on end: When something happens for hours, days, weeks, or years on end, it happens continuously and without stopping for the amount of time that is mentioned.
    • He is a wonderful companion and we can talk for hours on end.
    • I spend days on end in this studio.

 

• The modern nursing home developed from there, more or less by accident.
  
  • more or less: speaking imprecisely; to a certain extent. "they are more or less a waste of time"
    • Similar: approximately, roughly, nearly

 

• Before that time, if you fell seriously ill, doctors usually tended to you in your own bed.
  
  • tend to + V: 원래 알던 거 
    • to be likely to behave in a particular way or have a particular characteristic:
    • [ + to infinitive ] We tend to get cold winters and warm, dry summers in this part of the country.
  • tended to somthing/someone:  to deal with the problems or needs of a person or thing:
    • Nurses tended to the injured.
    • I went back to the office that night because there were some issues I needed to tend to.
    • look after/ take care of

 

• Two decades later the program had financed more than nine thousand new medical facilities across the country.
  • to finance / to fund / to sponsor → “돈을 주는 쪽”
  • to get(be) funded / to secure funding / to raise funds → “돈을 받거나 모으는 쪽"

 

• they had nowhere else to turn for help
  • turn to for help
    • to ask a person or organization for help or support:
    • turn to someone for something Without someone to turn to for advice, making the most appropriate choice can be difficult.
    • no one to turn to Her family lived a long way away, and she had no one to turn to.

turn to (someone) for help	✅ 자연스러움	(누구에게) 도움을 구하다
turn for help (단독)	❌ 어색함 (대상 없으면 X)	대상이 없어서 의미가 불완전함
nowhere else to turn for help	✅ 자연스러움 (to가 생략 가능)	도움을 받을 곳이 없다

 

 

• But pensions hadn’t provided a plan for that final, infirm stage of mortal life. As hospitals sprang up,
• With time, regulations were tightened.
• But they also found no explanation for her fall beyond general frailty.
• The staff relented.
• She’d been taken by ambulance to a hospital.
• She was put in hospital clothes most of the time.
• But she was wretchedly unhappy.