The Golden Girls Were on to Something
Creating a connections game plan
Our next-door neighbor, let’s call her Polly, is 82. Over her long life, she has weathered losing a husband and a long-time companion, her son recently passed, and her daughter lives 500 miles away… meaning that for all intents and purposes, she is alone. From my vantage point, she is several years away from the same situation my mom was in when she came to live with my family. Life on all fronts is progressively getting difficult. Too difficult.
Physically, she is very, very overweight, so moving from point A to point B is a challenge, as is performing simple household chores. Our son helps her from time to time when she has a task that needs 16-year-old brawn (he literally just dashed over to open a bottle), and the other day, I ferried her and her dog to the vet in a downpour. Midway through outlining this post, I learned she went to the ER late in the evening with an elevated heart rate and spent a wakeful night undergoing countless tests while trying to catnap on a gurney. I picked her up when she was discharged with no long-term instructions other than her heart and lungs were fine, go home and rest.
Don’t get me wrong, we don’t mind in the least being here for Polly when she needs us; in fact, I often check in with her to make sure she’s OK and inquire if I can pick anything up for her. While my husband, Andrea, and I are worried that she appears to be on an inevitable health slide, what saddens us most is that we well understand the difficulties of navigating life alone in the golden years. Unless we work to counter them, all aspects of life—from physical to emotional well-being—become so much harder with age.
We’ve seen this played out in our own family, both with our fiercely independent surrogate grandmother Lucille—who not only had us as support but was able to afford full-time, longtime trusted companions—as well as with my completely dependent mother, who relied on us totally for housing and care in the last 13 years of her life. Additionally, I have many friends going through similar situations with their parents. I have great compassion and understanding for these waning years.
A healthier way
The experience with my mom caused a major shift in my thinking about the golden years. I developed a new respect for the tradition that many cultures have of multi-generational homes…and the more I know, the more I think that those Golden Girls from the late ‘80s were onto something very wise. Remember those ladies? Four mature women, with very different—often clashing—personalities, living together in unlikely harmony, supporting each other in their golden years.
Although I wasn’t a regular viewer, I did see it every so often due to its enormous cultural popularity. Granted, the bantering of very well-developed and executed characters made it quite entertaining, but what I remember above all was the friendship, connection, and bonds that these elderly ladies shared. They became a familial nucleus that was enviable then, and even more so now. At this stage in my life, I’m keenly aware of how rare that situation is, and how extraordinarily critical it is to the quality of life.
While my mom’s physical health was the precipitating reason that she moved from another state to live with us at the age of 83, I quickly realized that physical assistance was only a small part of the overall reason why she shouldn’t live alone. She needed “life” support. Friendship. Companionship. Sounding board. Advice. Monitoring. Course correcting. Another set of ears at the doctor's. A fresh set of eyes on any given situation. An Anchor. While I had tried my best to be long-distance support for her after my dad died, I honestly didn’t fully understand what she needed at that point in her life.
For a whole host of reasons (most we can mitigate), many abilities start to diminish as we age. I was struck by how much my mom—once a very strong and independent woman—had become fearful and unsure of herself. Her decisions were no longer well-reasoned, and her zeal for life had all but disappeared. But then again, she had lived alone for 10 years, struggling to stay afloat in life’s choppy waters, which were getting exponentially more treacherous.
Watchful, caring eyes
This brings me back to my neighbor, Polly. It now appears that her trip to the ER was stress-related, as I had surmised as I was driving her home. I wonder if she had her husband, daughter, or another companion with her, would she had gotten to a state in which her heart was racing in the first place? While I can’t be sure and it may not be fair to speculate, my intuition says no. With my mom under our roof, I was keenly aware of her health; I could monitor slight changes, get in front of issues before they became problems, and know intuitively when something was serious or manageable on our own. How many times I remember calming her fears and reassuring her life was OK…
There is great value in being part of a watchful community of family or friends. I’m starting to give this careful consideration now because the future will probably require me to have a flexible mindset—which is not my strong suit. Neither was it my mom’s. Her attitude about the move was the thing that she struggled with the most over the 13 years with us. I don’t blame her for not wanting to leave the city that she loved, the environment where she felt safe and secure, or the friends that she cherished. But she was not happy with the move, and in no uncertain terms, she told everyone that she spoke to—including the dental hygienist—how much she disliked living in California. For thirteen, long, years. I often wonder if a move was part of her plans, if she had given herself a decade or so to wrap her mind around it, would she have adapted more easily? Been happier and more contented? Could we all have been a bit more at peace? I’m sure that if we all had planned decades earlier for her eventual move, the transition could have been a heck of a lot easier and more harmonious.
Different strokes
When I was a child, I remember visiting some friends of my parents who lived in a planned retirement community. I thought it was such an odd notion: a bunch of old people living together. In retrospect, I was young, naïve, and a bit harsh in my opinion. Although probably not a good fit for Andrea and me, I certainly see the multitude of positive merits for many people, not the least of which is fulfilling that all-important human need for connections and community. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t dissuade anyone from considering it a viable option.
However, as Andrea is a native of Italy and grew up in a multi-generational home, we’ve already started planting the seed with our son that at some point in his life, we’ll be back! Not right away, of course…we want him to establish his life wherever and whatever that may be. We don’t know what form it will take. A big house with an in-law wing? A compound? Adjoining home? Second home? Not sure yet, but we’ll figure it out…I’m confident the right path will be revealed in time.
Living with children may not be an option, as I’m reminded of a sweet story from the Blue Zones movie about a 100-year-old Sardinian woman, Guila, who had never married and who had no children, so her nieces all took turns visiting and tending to her. There are no old folks homes or sprawling retirement subdivisions in Sardinia; they have strong community built into their core values. Guila’s nieces view their time with her not as a duty or obligation, but as a gift of her wisdom and spirit. Likewise, Guila doesn’t see herself as a burden, but as an integral piece of the family pie.
Connection mindset planning
Guila and her nieces are an example of perhaps the most challenging aspect of aging: mindset. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people say “I don’t want to be a burden to my kids…” and the kids thinking the same thing. In my humble opinion, this is not a healthy point of view. People are not burdens, whether they are family or friends. Those Golden Girls were there for each other through thick and thin despite their idiosyncrasies; and except for Dorothy and her mom, they weren’t even related. Those ladies got it right.
Although I’m diligently working on being as active, healthy, and engaged as I possibly can be as I get older, I know that the healthiest thing that my husband and I can do for ourselves is to anchor our golden years in a community of family and friends. Though I don’t know precisely how this will unfold, I’m embracing this mindset and staying open to new possibilities in the coming decades… ensuring that connections and community will be a solid piece of our puzzle to live well, age great.
I think these "pooled resources" homes will be gaining popularity even among people who may not need care, although my dad was in a shared private home and it worked out better than a facility. I just love the notion of people who may not have the family, getting a group of friends together in a large enough home that they still feel independent but connected.
You have a marvelous situation, Doryce! You are blessed to be with your family and your family is equally blessed that you are part of their daily lives.