In past blogs I have talked about aging, becoming an elder, and the respect we need to have for elders in our families and communities. I have mentioned that being old does not automatically alot you respect from those who are younger. It is not enough to just be old. You have to have also lived your life so that those who are around you, regardless of age, gender, race, or sexual orientation, etc, know that you love and accept them, even when you are guiding them into better behavioral patterns than the ones they have been in. If you are arrogant enough to judge people and be cruel to people, then you do not deserve any respect no matter how old you become.
Having said all that, it is also important that those who are younger understand that they are not just here to have a good time. There are also responsibilities that go along with breathing our precious air. Those responsibilities include things like being good to people, taking care of others, making sure that those in need are attended to. When you live your life in a selfish way you are going to end up all alone, even if it takes 80+ years.
We live our lives raising children to (hopefully) be good and decent people. A lot of our focus for around 20 or so years is about that. But what about our elders? What about our aged parents, grandparents, even siblings if there is enough of an age gap between you? How can we attend to their needs?
I am a proponent of NOT shoving elders into a care home unless their care requires much more than what we are capable of. That does not mean what we are unwilling to do. It does not mean that we get a free pass, simply because we don’t want to do it. Here are some suggestions for how to care for an elder who is still living at home.
- Connect with them daily. This will sometimes mean a text message (if they are text message savvy), or a phone call to check in. It does not have to be for very long. But do check in and if you don’t connect, consider going over to their home and checking to see if they are lying on the floor instead of sitting or standing up.
- Run errands. Take them to appointments, get groceries for them or take them to get their own groceries, help them with repairs around their home.
- Make sure that, while you are there anyway, you mow their lawn or shovel their walk.
- Ask them about what life was like when they were young…like in their 20’s or when they were teenagers.
- Play cards and do puzzles with them.
- Keep track of whether or not they are regularly exercising, socializing and taking their medications. Some elders have a difficult time keeping up with those sorts of things.
- If your elder has a particular skill set that you do not, spend some time learning from them so that they feel the satisfaction of having passed that down to the next generation. I cannot begin to count the number of times I have wished that I spent more time to learn how to bake the way my mother had. And now that is lost forever.
- Work on assembling a memory book of their life. This can be a keepsake that will be passed down through the generations, giving future generations a look at what came before them and a peek into an ancestor’s life. Include photos whenever possible. It is important for elders to provide insights into the world they lived in, and it is equally important for youth to know who came before them, who were their ancestors, and what makes them who they are.
- If you do not like housework, but want to help your elder to keep a clean living space, then consider hiring that work out to a housekeeping service. It does not cost that much and will help to keep the living environment from becoming a bio hazard.
- Remember to celebrate their birthdays. A lot of elders no longer have the desire to acknowledge their birthdays because society has done an excellent job of shaming aging. However, each day, each month, and each year that we can spend on this side of the dirt should be celebrated. It helps the thriver within us to know it is doing a great job!
There are some exceptions to these suggestions. For example, if your elder is someone who abused you or neglected you or both, then you really can choose if and how you would take care of them in their later years. I do not like the fact that care homes are overpopulated and understaffed. This leads to disaster on a regular basis. And very few of them accommodate an elder’s life partner. Even fewer make accommodations for those who are in a same-gender relationship. Those are things that have to change sooner than later. So if you are considering a care home, please do your research and actually visit the care home, as opposed to trusting what you find online. If you walk in and find that there is a stench of excrement then just turn and walk away. That is not a place for anyone to spend any amount of time.
After my grandmother had a stroke that left her debilitated, she was placed in a care home, but one in which my mother already worked as a dietician. So my mother would see her on a regular basis. This care home was across the street from the school I attended, so if my mother’s shift was ending around the time that I was let out of school, I would go visit my grandmother and then get a ride home with my mother. It was heartbreaking that my grandmother would not know who I was until I explained it to her. Then she was very happy to see me. I would tell her about my day at school, because she would have very little to say about her day as she would not remember much of it. And the next day that I went to see her we would do it all again. My mother asked me why, when it would upset me so much, I still wanted to visit my grandmother. I told her that she was important to me and was an important part of my life growing up, so I was going to be there for her even if she did not know who I was. I knew that we could not give her the care she needed at home, but the least I could do was visit her a few times a week. It turned out that, later on, that was the care home that my school choir performed at a number of times. I would also take these opportunities to visit with my grandma after the performance was done. The hardest part was the day that we performed and I looked out and did not see my grandma because she had dies a number of weeks earlier. I could not wait to get off that stage and go back to school. And from that moment on I could not bring myself to do any more performances at the care home.
Nonetheless, I was happy that I had spent what time I could with her before she passed. I did not know anyone else my age who did that with their elder relatives, and that always baffled me, almost as much as it baffled my friends that I would spend so much time with someone who did not even remember my name. Hard as that part was, it was not about that. It was about her, not me.
As much as it is important to invest our time, energy and finances in our youth, we also need to invest in our elders. They did that for us. It is the least that we can do. After all, you never know as the years go on what happens next. So it would be a good idea to set a good example for those who are coming up behind us.
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