I lost another classmate this week. I know at my age, this is to be expected. We are approaching our 50th class reunion this September and John’s loss makes 25 known classmates that have left this earth. In my own experience, I have come to believe the first person to die in a relationship is the lucky one. Family intact, the healthy spouse becomes the built in care-taker, the medical advocate, insurance advocate, and family communicator. Not an easy road being a caretaker, but it can be more scary facing aging alone.
Most of us do not plan for these times. My own parents were a great example of this. Living life, often pay check to pay check, not giving a thought about what the future holds as an “elderly person”, mostly because they didn’t have the resources to plan. My Dad, who survived my mother by nine years, spent those nine years getting by, doing what most of us do when living life alone after losing a spouse, keeping busy to fight off the loneliness.
My Dad and I had a conversation shortly after my Mother died about his future. I told him then, that I wanted him to be as independent for as long as he could and do as much as he wanted, but when the time came for him to face that moment where he knew he could no longer care for himself, to please consider moving in with Pat and I. He did not respond and that was the entirety of our conversation. As the oldest child and daughter, I took on the long distance role of calling him every day, morning and night (unless I knew he was traveling with his lady friend). Over time, because of this intimacy in calls, I could hear the changes in his voice and tone, even though his words were, “I’m okay, “ often followed by his activities.
A trip to North Carolina followed as soon as I sensed something was off with him to discover it was time for that decision. I walked in, saw his condition and said, “Oh Pop, you know what this means?” as I saw how swollen his ankles were and how out of breath he was with any movement. I was lucky in that he gave me no fight about moving him up North, and for the last 3 1/2 years of his life, the only thing he had to say about moving in with us was “If I had known I was going to live this long I would have waited longer before moving in with you all.”
That was the total conversation about any end of life arrangements. I didn’t really understand it then, but now, as I stand alone after losing Patrick, I understand better what it means to face the rest of our life alone, hopefully, independent but still alone. We don’t want to be a burden to our kids. We don’t want to cost our kids any financial worries. As we age, we tend to hang on to what ever we have harder…for those days when we will need it.
But we do a disservice to ourselves and our children when we avoid sitting them down and having the “senior talk.” I know my brother and I talked about those times long before we lost our Mother and our Dad was alone. I know my own children have had the conversation since losing their Dad, although I sometimes believe they are throwing dice to see who the loser is that will have to deal with me. (Kidding of course!)
Next, I’ll cover options…especially when moving in with a child is not one of them.
Next time…
No comments:
Post a Comment