The Post-Golden Years

Assisted Living. Tucson, Arizona, 2015

So, how many of you are caring for–or have cared for–an aging and infirm parent or relative?

It really makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

In the old days of the small town and village, the extended family and the community was the safety net–grand kids, nieces, nephews, sons and daughters, all banded together to care for the aging great-grandparent or the dying great uncle. Today, that job is often outsourced to assisted living, long term care, skilled nursing, and hospice facilities (that is, if you have insurance or are lucky enough to afford them!). Some of these places are marginal and reek of urine, others are excellent and remind you of a high-end resort…still, no matter the case, it is really impossible to duplicate the kind of loving care a relative would get in a true extended family-community environment.

The price of “progress” in our society, I suppose.

It also seems that we value quantity of life so highly that quality of life too often seems to be out the door and gone. In many, many cases, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of our own money or of taxpayer money to keep our loved ones alive–often against their wishes, and often in pain–just so they can live a few weeks or a few months longer.

What’s the point? What are we trying to do? Are we doing all this for them, or for us?

And we all say the same thing: I don’t want the last months or years of my life to be like that!

I have even heard this: In terms of end-of-life and hospice-type care, we treat our cats and dogs much better.

Hopefully, as the years go by and it is my generation’s turn to move through the post-golden years and into the beyond, there will be new ways of thinking about the process of decay, pain, death, and dying. Perhaps, in the future, new morals, new ethics, and more humane attitudes (and new laws) will give each of us greater personal freedom to make those very, very difficult choices about the path we wish to take.