MAYBE IT’S THE time of year, I don’t really know, but this has been coming up a lot lately, so here I go again.
Most of us aren’t really looking to live forever and that’s good because the odds are against it.
Let’s face it: We’ve all been rolling the dice since the day we showed up on this planet and, in all likelihood, from nine months before that.
Before we even knew what hope was, we were hoping that we’d show up in more or less one piece with most of the necessary parts intact and working most of the time.
We hoped that we’d be greeted by grownups who actually liked us, were glad that we’d showed up and were willing to take reasonably good care of us.
And we hoped that we’d be loved.
We hoped that we’d manage to grow up, have a reasonably good time doing it, find a way to sustain ourselves and learn to be reasonably decent human beings most of the time.
And we hoped that we’d be loved.
Against all odds, most of us have come pretty close: It wasn’t perfect and mistakes were made by all concerned. Maybe there was cruelty, stupidity or selfishness. Maybe there was tragedy and, almost certainly, there was loss.
There also was fun, silliness, magical memories, joy … and hope.
And if we were really lucky, somebody taught us to love.
Not for all of us and not all the time, but mostly for many of us, enough of the time to be able to say, “Thank you. It’s been worth the doing.”
Even then, though, in the midst of a mulligan stew of blessings and curses, most of us will admit that we’re not really looking to live forever. We’re just looking to live until it’s time to do something else.
That’s where I come in.
People who have figured this last part out often ask me, “How should I plan for ‘long-term care’?” Or something like that.
To which I reply, “Make a lot of money, be extraordinarily healthy and make sure your very large family really likes you.”
And there still won’t be any guarantees.
That’s not to say that it isn’t worth our time to plan — it certainly is — because there are a lot of things we can do to make this aging thing easier for ourselves and the people we purport to love, but what people usually want when they ask that question (or something like it) are guarantees.
Not on this planet.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try so we try to figure out what could go wrong: Money? Health? Food? Shelter? Transportation? Money? (“Money” usually shows up more than once).
And that’s good. Me, too.
Sometimes good people come to me because they want to help people — usually elders — who need help, so they ask me how to help, thinking that the reply will have something to do with a program, a building or a service they could perform.
And there might well be.
But here’s what puts most folks under most of the time: Ignorance, isolation and fear.
And it often goes like this:
She or he begins to realize, for any number of reasons, that she or he needs a little help, but she or he is terrified that if they (whomever they are) knew how much help was needed, they would put he or she in a nursing home.
In my world many of us are more terrified of nursing homes than we are of morgues, so we say nothing. We just get by today.
No help, no help, no help and pretty soon things get worse and worse and worse.
And where do they end up? Right.
Maybe they honestly had no idea that there was any help to be had so what’s to ask?
Maybe it’s pride — sometimes, it’s even political — but, mostly, it’s about fear and being alone.
People who do what I do (or something like it) spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what “old people want,” although they usually phrase it more diplomatically.
In my simplistic view of an overly complex planet, it isn’t tough: Just close your eyes in a quiet place for a very short time and imagine what you’d want. Care to hear something amazing?
Most of us just saw the same picture:
We want our lives to look — more or less, as much as possible — the way they look right now: Being who we are, doing what we do, in more or less the same way in, and in more or less the same place. Voila.
So what?
What am I suggesting we should do, besides be rich, healthy and live on the first floor of the Waltons’ farmhouse?
Fair question.
Here’s a fair answer:
• Plan;
• Learn who knows about all this help stuff, so you can learn what you need to learn, when you need to learn it;
• Don’t close the curtains and don’t unplug or turn off the phone, because if the only person you’re ever around is you, right now is as smart and happy as you will ever be;
• Remember that courage is not the absence of fear.
I often remind people that “… nobody can put anybody anywhere that they don’t want to be,” which means that they can’t put you in a nursing home, just because you need a little help, and that’s true.
The fact is most of us will never see the inside of a nursing home, unless we’ve (a) gone to visit someone, or (b) are there for short-term rehab.
Yes, Alzheimer’s, strokes and whatever else can land some of us in institutions, but for the vast majority of us? No.
Can I absolutely guarantee you that whatever help there might be will be exactly the way you want it, when you want it and at the price you like? Of course not — this is Earth.
Can I promise you that, if you do everything right, you won’t die in a less-than-perfect way, at a less-than-perfect time? No. Can you?
So, we’re back to rolling the dice. And if everything really is pretty OK? You’re doing alright, you’re having your life and you’re pretty much enjoying it, most of the time? And you want to help? What do you do?
Be somebody’s friend. You don’t need a degree in social work to know how to do that.
You know someone who is alone — yes, you do — and maybe they say, and act like, they want to be alone, so what do you do?
Don’t be a social worker and don’t rescue them, save them or tell them what to do because you wouldn’t take that, either.
Just be a friend. And remember that if being a friend was easy everybody would do it.
So, think, plan, learn, prepare and do as much of the right stuff as you can, as much as possible — and be sure that your very large family really likes you.
It’s up to us to enjoy this ride, so go enjoy it.
And remember that ignorance, isolation and fear all start with alone. One really is the loneliest number.
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Mark Harvey is director of Clallam/Jefferson Senior Information & Assistance, which operates through the Olympic Area Agency on Aging. He is also a member of the Community Advocates for Rural Elders partnership. He can be reached at 360-452-3221 (Port Angeles-Sequim), 360-385-2552 (Jefferson County) or 360-374-9496 (West End), or by emailing harvemb@dshs.wa.gov.
