Navigating Old Age

            “Look,” I said to Art, “there’s a New York Times on the lawn next door!”  For most people that wouldn’t be worth commenting on but I was looking for clues to who our new neighbors might be. I hoped they’d be quiet, intelligent, friendly but not too intrusive….just pleasant.

“That’s a good sign,” I said feeling some relief.  “It might mean we’ll have something in common when we meet them.”

            Several weeks ago we heard that the townhouse next door had sold after a year on the market.  It has been empty much of the time we’ve lived at Black Horse Run because the previous owners were in California and only used it two weeks out of the year.  Naturally we speculated as to who might move in.  Our front porches are side by side and we’d not had neighbors this close before. 

One day, there was a car in the driveway and I met the daughter and son-in-law and learned more.  Our new neighbors are elderly, in their 80’s, and moving from Florida to be close to their daughter and son-in-law who moved to Biltmore Lake from Seattle.  (All roads from everywhere must lead to Asheville. This is a familiar scenario here.)  “My Dad is not well,” she told me, “and if my mother is left alone I want her to be close to me.”

            While chatting from our front porches the daughter told me, “I am the daughter…the eldest…and the caregiver for my parents.”  Then she hesitated as if she wanted to add more. It all sounded very familiar.  I told her she didn’t need to explain because I had moved my mother to Asheville after we moved here, too. I am her caregiver.  I jokingly suggested we start a caregivers support group and she told me seriously she was on the verge of doing just that. She went on to explain, “We’re my parents landlords now because we bought this place. We live a few blocks over in a big house but perhaps someday when we are old we’ll move in here.”

            I never imagined I would be a caregiver for an elderly parent.  Many of my generation feel the same. I can remember my father declaring proudly, “we can take care of ourselves…we’ve saved and planned and we don’t need help from anyone.” He was a self-made man who became successful with no help from family.  Early in his retirement years he chose an expensive life care retirement community in Chapel Hill where it is easy to imagine moving seamlessly from independent living to assisted living to nursing home care all on the same campus.  When his health declined and he could no longer make decisions, I was the one who stepped in to help my mother.  When he died, there was no family in Chapel Hill. Mother readily agreed to come to Asheville.

 I, too, am a daughter, the eldest and steeped in a lifetime of “doing the right thing”.  Mother is now nearing 95 and lives in an assisted living facility near me where she has help with daily tasks.  She has often said, “I never imagined I’d live so long.”  When I am with her she will take my hand in hers and lovingly tell me “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”  I almost want to reply out loud that I don’t know what she’d do without me either...but I don’t say it.

There are so many clichés batted around that quip “growing old is not for sissies” or “ageing is mind over matter” or “you are as old as you feel”.  It all makes it sound easy but it’s not.  The reality is that unlike most cultures in the world we do not have an extended family network in place to care for and respect the elderly in our American society. Our culture reveres youth. We are good at building institutions for old age living but I have learned in the years as a caregiver to my parents that in no way does this substitute or go far enough in what is needed in old age.  Family is what counts.

We have now met Barbara and Tom Browne, our new 82-year old neighbors from Florida. Tom has entertaining life stories to tell of being a CEO of his own company and living in France for many years. But the conversations turn serious when he talks of exposure to chemicals in factories he ran that have affected his health.  Barbara is peppy and enthusiastic as she tells us matter-of-factly that this is their twentieth move!  Tom sits in the garage on his walker and smokes his pipe or likes to sit on the back deck watching the busy traffic go by on Lake Drive.  Barbara is often up at the clubhouse already immersing herself in friendly bridge games.  I like to see their daughter’s car in the driveway as she comes over daily to check up on things and help out.  It is a nice arrangement and working for that family.

            Knowing the time commitment and patience that goes along with helping elderly parents cope makes me wonder who will care for me.  Like my father, I want to say, “but of course, I’m prepared to care for myself.” as I’d never want to be a burden on my son and daughter-in-law.  I now have first-hand experience letting go of things in my own life and being there for my mother when she needs me. I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I suspect my new neighbor’s daughter and son-in-law feel exactly the same and there is some comfort knowing I’m not alone in helping a parent navigate the difficult path into old age.