Gettin’ old…gettin’ old.
My son is beginning to fret, far more vocally than before, about my staying here alone in my middle-class four-bedroom house. Quite reasonable is his fear that I’ll trip (AGAIN!) and fall (AGAIN!!), but this time inflict some much more serious harm (breaking a shoulder was quite enough…) or even kill myself.
So he’s begun lobbying for me to sell this place and move into one of those horrid holding pens for old folks, like the one my father went into.
Now…my father went to sea all his life. He ran away from home at the age of 17, lied about his age, joined the Navy, and never looked back. And it was a good life: he earned a good living without a college degree (in fact, I don’t think he even graduated from high school). He saw the world — big time — there are not many countries outside the Soviet Union that he didn’t visit. And he landed a harbor pilot’s job in Saudi Arabia that, thanks to the hideous living conditions, paid enough for him to retire at the age of 50.
He did, eventually, have to go back to sea — he didn’t understand about inflation and so found himself short of enough to support himself and my mother for the rest of their lives. But it was only for a year or so.
After my mother died, he immediately moved into an old-folkerie — uhm, “life-care community” — where he lived out the rest of his life in brain-banging misery. No, not because of the institution, called Orangewood, which treated him well — after 30 years on tankers, he was used to crowded living conditions and bad food. But because he stupidly remarried and ended up stuck with with a harridan. He probably figured he could rebuild his former life by replacing my mother with another old gal. But…oh, my….
So my view of old-folkeries is tainted by his remarkably unpleasant experience…which admittedly was tainted not by the old-folkery itself but by the bitch he married.
Let’s suppose I were to give up on staying in my own place and succumb to my son’s demands that I move into an institutional setting…
What would you need to know about a place to live in your dotage?
- What services and physical amenities would be needed for one to live on one’s own?
- Meals (served in a student union-like setting)
- Cleaning services
- Repair services
- Chauffeuring (in a limited way)
- Power bills
- Could you provide them for yourself?
- I’m already doing that, except for the chauffeuring…and we do have plenty of those services hereabouts
- How much would providing them cost?
- Certainly not as much as your entire net worth, which you pay to get entry to one of those places
What attracted my father to the whole idea of Orangewood, at the outset?
- He didn’t want to deal with the work of maintaining a house, i.e.,
- yard work
- repairs
- Utility bills were probably included as part of the monthly Orangewood bill
- Meals were provided
- He didn’t have to make regular or large grocery-store runs
- He didn’t mind institutional cooking
- Orangewood staff would drive inmates to doctors & other destinations
- In fact, I think they had a bus service that would tote the inmates to grocery stores. Yea verily…I do remember he and Helen ended up sitting for hours in some doctor’s waiting room until the OW bus showed up to drive them home. Hardly ideal!!!
- He was used to living in an institutional setting, and did not mind cramped, noisy quarters
The fact is, he probably would have been fine there if he had not become involved with Helen. This hints that trying to replicate what made you happy in your previous life is not a good idea.
- There was no way another woman could replace or duplicate my mother
- The apartment quarters were too cramped for a couple to live in comfortably unless they were hardly ever home.
If this observation is accurate, then it would seem you have two choices:
- Don’t remarry or otherwise try to rebuild your prior lifestyle. Engage the new life and do as much as possible in new ways and different ways.
- If you just must remarry, do not imagine the new married life will be anything like your prior lifestyle. ENGAGE CHANGE and build an entirely new outlook and lifestyle in the new married life.
Why did my mother not want to move to Orangewood?
- She loved that house in Sun City. She repeatedly told me how much she loved the house and liked living there.
- She had dear friends out there.
- She had no desire to leave those friends or build a new social circle
- After a lifetime of major moves, she probably had figured the move from Long Beach to Sun City would be the last household move she would have to make, and she didn’t want to do it again.
Why might she have been willing to move?
- Orangewood was within walking distance of my house (but she couldn’t or wouldn’t walk that far)
- Luke Air Force Base generated a LOT of noise (although she was not bothered by it)
- She might have felt safer, given her burglar paranoia
- She would have been closer to fancy shopping centers
- Although probably unaware of this: she would have had access to better doctors and medical facilities
None of these were strong enough motives to make her want to move.
What are the pro’s & cons of my own place vs an OldFolkerie? Can these be weighted for comparison?
Pro’s
Staying here:
- Maintain independence
- Yard
- Private pool
- Spare room for guests
- Quiet: privacy
- Full kitchen
- Separate freezer
- Indoor, private garage for car
- Own washer & dryer
OldFolkerie:
- Communal living: meet new friends
- Communal living: authorities keep eye on you
- Relieves my son of responsibility
- Bus to take you places
Is there a way to replicate the benefits of an old-folkerie?
- Participate in church, clubs
- Make more friends: stay in touch w/ people
- Hire employee(s) to visit, check on you
- Get one of those necklace alarms
- Use taxis to get around: Lyft, Uber, other rideshare services Check it out: https://my.aarpfoundation.org/article/affordable-transportation/
Along those lines, note this site: https://my.aarpfoundation.org/ Many resources that could help you stay in your home.
Weighted value of pro’s & con’s:
(Sorry: WordPress will NOT let me format this table sanely…and just now I’m not in the mood to retype the whole thing…)
| Issue/item | Cons, my pl | Pro’s, my place | Cons, OW | Pro’s, OW | Real & potential drawbacks |
| Independence | 2 | 10 | 1 | 2 | Risk of fall |
| Yard | 3 | 10 | 10 | 0 | No yd @ OW |
| Private Pool | 3 | 8 | 10 | 0 | Expense, risk |
| Privacy | 5 | 10 | 8 | 1 | Limited, OW |
| Full kitchen | 0 | 10 | 9 | 1 | OW: no full kitchen |
| Sep freezer | 0 | 10 | 10 | 0 | OWs: none |
| Private parking | 0 | 10 | 5 | 5 | OW: none |
| Own w/d | 0 | 10 | 10 | 0 | No w/d in apt. |
| Hired workers | 2 | 10 | 5 | 5 | n/a |
| Taxi/Uber | 3 | 10 | 3 | 10 | T/U: about the same |
| Trans included | 0 | 10 | 8 | 8 | Slow, PITA; no transit officially “included” at my place |
| Meals | 8 | 10 | 8 | 5 | OJ food was awful! Limited mealtimes |
| Frees Son | 10 | 2 | 2 | 8 | Need to find services to help when he is unavailable |
| Social life | 8 | 2 | 3 | 7 | Need to reach out to make friends here |
| Sum above | 54 Cons, my place |
112 Pro’s, my place |
92 Cons, Orangewd |
52 Pro’s, Orangewd
|
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If this list is reasonably complete (is it??), from my point of view: the pro’s of living at my place outweigh the pro’s of Orangewood by more than twice; the con’s of living at Orangewood outweigh the cons of staying here by almost twice.
If fear of a catastrophic fall or a sudden health emergency is the main motivator for institutionalizing oneself, would it not make as much sense to ALWAYS CARRY A CHARGED-UP PHONE or one of those call-for-help buttons?
Either of those is infinitely cheaper than forking over the value of your home plus still more of your assets to some institution. And, IMHO, infinitely better than consigning yourself to a prison for old folks.
Did you consider whether Orangewood will allow a dog? Or how Ruby will adapt to it?
My aunt lives in a place not far from you. They have “cottages” and apartments. The cottages are essentially duplexes, and are very like where she lived before in Chandler. She has a full kitchen. (There is a monthly fee for meals that she is expected to eat in the cafeteria. She thinks of this as part of the rent and it gives her the option when she doesn’t want to cook. I don’t think the food is bad, but I suspect your standards are higher than mine.)
There are lots of opportunities to socialize. That would probably be the biggest benefit for you.
Anyway, hard decisions. Good luck!
She may be in Orangewood, actually. Or the Beatitudes. They’re similar in most ways. Basically, they’re like hotels where the staff supervise your behavior and habits.
Being required to eat in the institution’s cafeteria does not give her an option. At Orangewood, they do count heads in the dining room: they sign you in, as it were. Your aunt may not HAVE to cook because she’s not ALLOWED to cook because she’s REQUIRED to eat a given meal in the dining room. If you’re used to cooking for yourself and you prefer to cook from scratch, the cuisine strikes you as awful: gunk that comes out of cans and boxes. Most of the residents aren’t bothered by this, though, because so many Americans do not eat well. We eat gunk that comes out of cans and boxes. 😀
Thus one of the problems with these places, for me, is that I’m not a typical American. I do not eat gunk that comes out of cans and boxes. I do not sit in front of the television all evening with the sound blasting so loud you can hear it down the institution’s hallway — and in all the surrounding apartments. I’m not fond of being watched, or of being told what to do and when to do it.
Some of these places, from what I understand, do let you keep a dog. They may not allow a big dog like a German shepherd, but apparently smaller dogs are sometimes OK.
But think about that: small dogs tend to be yappy dogs. So if your neighbor’s sidekick is a little yipper, you’re going to get serenaded with arfing all day long. Groovy.
And that will be another aspect of institutional living: having to put up with noise and nuisances that would not occur in your own dwelling.
When you consider how much a prison for old folks costs — Orangewood glommed the entire proceeds of the sale of my father’s house, plus a substantial chunk of his life savings — you could hire someone to come in and care for you, without locking yourself in an institution. My cleaning lady told me that’s what she used to do: take care of people in their own homes. The trick, of course, would be to have someone trustworthy who can come in and check on the quality and consistency of care you’re getting. But really: how hard would it be to find such a watchdog?
She lives in Friendship Village.
She pays a fee which covers x meals per month. When she eats in the cafeteria, they check her off. If she eats fewer than x meals there, the money is not refunded. Essentially, she sees it as a monthly fee that gives her the option of eating in the cafeteria when she wants to. She has a full kitchen, and makes her own meals when she chooses. (I’ve stayed with her several times, so I’ve seen this first hand.)
I believe that you are more particular about eating than most Americans. 🙂
She lives in one of the cottages, which really is very similar to her duplex in Chandler.
I work with elderly people, and there are no easy answers. Even in “good places,” staff don’t answer emergency calls or steal small items. Even bonded and insured agencies that do home care have dishonest, lazy, or uncaring staff. It’s a matter of trade offs. What means most to you? What can you do without?
I’m sorry you’re facing this. I hope you find a livable solution.
Thanks for the good wishes! <3
Yes, Friendship Village here is across the Valley. Within walking distance of the Funny Farm, we have Orangewood, and the Beatitudes is a short drive down the road. The places have sprouted like weeds as the Baby Boom generation has skateboarded into senility. 😀
And yes: I don't at all care for American cuisine, such as it is. Well…such as it is in the form most of us eat. Things that come out of cans and boxes are, IMHO, not food: it's just stuff to fill your belly and make some manufacturer rich. Considering that we're the wealthiest nation in the history of humanity, it's just astonishing that our people don't eat better.
😀 I doubt if there is a livable solution to the process of dying…which, after all, is what advancing old age is.
My Christian Scientist relatives lived well into their 90s, never seeing a doctor. Interestingly, they were fairly healthy right up to the end. I believe — my theory only, no objective facts here! — they thrived for these reasons:
* They never drank alcohol.
* They ate whole foods, cooked at home; they rarely or never ate processed junk.
* They lived in the Berkeley foothills, about two blocks from the grocery store and from the train station. This meant they were walking UPHILL at least five times a week, because they didn't drive.
* They belonged to a church that met regularly, and so had social activities that took them out of the house.
Institutionalizing members of the Greatest Generation when they reach old age is not, IMHO, the solution to dealing with the largest population of elderly in the history of humankind. The alternative, though, escapes me, especially given the nature of our society, in which women as well as men are expected to leave home and spend their days in some workplace. That characteristic leaves no one to care for family members: thus the elderly are farmed out to sitters just as young kids are farmed out to day care and kindergarten.
As a people, we have relieved our women of their traditional responsibility — taking care of kids, the elderly, and the home — and farmed that responsibility out to faceless institutions: schools and old-folkeries. Is that better or worse than what we had? I dunno. One's gut instinct leans toward "worse": people should be able to live in their homes and with loving relatives. But as we know, what "should" be is never what reality is.