I’m not a spring chicken, so I have seen and sometimes even experienced many of the difficulties that plague societies. My mother was a single woman whose income never reached a level that made life easy for her. When she became older my brothers and I realized that she needed to have more assistance with daily living. Since residing in a facility designed for seniors never appealed to her because of cost and what she saw as loss of freedom, we struck a bargain and invited her to take turns living with us in our homes. She was a rather thoughtful guest who made the situation as pleasant as possible for herself and for us, but I knew that there was always a kind of tension that threatened to burst forth and sometimes actually did.
My mother never wanted to sell her home while she was living elsewhere. Somehow she harbored a belief that she might one day return to her more independent life. While we knew that it was more likely that she would become less and less able to live alone, we quietly let her continue to pay taxes and utility bills for her empty house. Sometimes we took her there just to sit among her familiar things for a few hours. All in all we made the situation work, but realized that it was becoming less and less tenable for all of us. Serious discussions about next moves were on the horizon and we kept putting them off.
Now I find myself in a similar situation with my ninety four year old father-in-law. While he is desperately attempting to maintain his independence, we see him becoming less and less able to take care of himself. He certainly can no longer live alone, but like my mother he insists on keeping his home. The stress of continually driving across congested roads to check on his mail and the general condition of the house falls mainly on my husband, whose health is definitely declining so he should be shouldering fewer and fewer responsibilities, not more. Nonetheless we have made the situation work for a bit over a year now and simply respond day by day by to changes in both us and my father-in-law that are inevitable as all three of us age.
I find myself thinking that our American society has created very few options for the care of older citizens even though we know that we have so many who are struggling in one way or another. Behold the resurrection of an old idea known as the additional dwelling unit or ADU. A trend in many parts of the country is to build a tiny house for older relatives near the family home of younger generations. Where there is enough land and zoning laws are not too restrictive, these places, sometimes called Granny flats, are revolutionizing the ways in which we look after senior citizens who are reluctant are reluctant to check themselves into the old school nursing and assisted living homes. People who have created such spaces boast about how much stress is removed from an often delicate situation when nobody feels that they have lost their independence or privacy.
I actually teach mathematics to a group of students who live in an expanded version of ADUs. They have a large tract of land that houses the parents, grandparents and even siblings of the young family that hired me to teach their children. It is indeed a compound of many generations in which everyone has a private space while simultaneously being able to look out for one another without much effort. Everyone’s happiness is apparent in the joyfulness that comes from the reduction of worry and stress that they enjoy. It literally reminds me of Amish communities where families create compounds in which everyone enjoys the comfort of knowing that there are always caring relatives nearby.
Another concept is co-housing, the idea of creating a community of townhomes or small houses around a central courtyard. Such places gather a mixture of young and old people who agree to look after one another while also having their own spaces for privacy. A high school friend of mine has been a leader in establishing such a co-housing project in the Houston area and his enthusiasm for the idea has captured my imagination.
Even as we have found a steady routine within our now expanded household I am all too aware that our comfortable pace might be interrupted at any moment by any one of us becoming ill, facing a medical emergency. In my own case I worry about what might happen if either I or my husband become temporarily incapacitated while looking after my father-in-law. I also am fully aware that as the clock ticks for him it becomes more and more likely that he will be less and less able to do things for himself and those times will most certainly come. As my husband and I also age the problems will begin to compound themselves and we do not yet have any kind of plan. I
In spite of friends’ comments that I am a saint I know all too well the worries that cause me to panic over what my imagination thinks may lie ahead. My anxieties suck the joy of life more often than I want to admit and I suspect that it is so with anyone dealing with an aging parent. Happily some people have been innovative in dealing with the problem and we might all learn from them.
I don’t know where my own situation will lead. My mother died before things became dire. My father-in-law does his best to blend into our routines. He too worries about what lies ahead. We all try to just think about those things tomorrow while I suspect we would be better served if we were to talk about how we should react to whatever happens before it happens. I plan to start those conversations with my adult children right now. I have learned the hard way how difficult it can be to meet everyone’s needs only when an emergency arises. Better that we broach those topics and find agreement that allows everyone to feel good. It’s time to have a plan so I don’t want to wait to think about that tomorrow.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 