Last Sunday, I spoke with my friend Nan who lives in Houston. She is eighty-five years old and lives alone in the home she and her late husband moved into decades before. She is healthy of mind and body, except for a recent seizure that left her restricted from driving. Her two daughters live close, are attentive, and see her often.
Still, my friend Nan said, “this isolation is terrible. I can’t see my friends. I can’t get out and about to places I like to go. Even though I have hired ladies three days a week to drive me places, this isolation is miserable.”
She is referencing, of course, Covid isolation. It has kept her apart from her friends, apart from her community, apart from her church. And for what? To preserve more days of life?
I often wonder, while spending time with my companions who are older than me, “are we sure that working so hard to preserve length of life is the right goal?”
We have invested a great deal in recent decades on all things life-preserving, and we have made note of a longer lifespan. But are we sacrificing “life” for the preservation of life?
Please hear me: the emotional needs of our older folks become more important than their physical needs, especially for folks living with dementia. Every one of my companions would choose time with their loved ones or time doing something they love over just about anything else.
The reality, though, is that there is sometimes hard family history, and conflict between families. It may have been a really hard go as a kid with a particular parent. Please compassionately consider how their world has narrowed, and that they long for connection with family. And if they have dementia, they may have forgotten the grief they caused.
If it proves too difficult to provide the connection they long for in person, then try other methods through FaceTime calls, or sending short videos of their grandkids. Send pictures of you and your project cars. Send greeting cards; even a short message of love and kindness will fill a bit of the well of emotional need. Or bring on board a volunteer or paid companion to fill some of the emotional needs.
One of my friends with advanced dementia has been missing her kids who live across the country. No one is able to travel, and there are not too many calls coming in, so we began looking at and reminiscing over some family pictures from her past. Her emotional well-being blossomed in about twenty minutes, and we had a lovely time.
My time with older folks and those with dementia is teaching me that we seem to be missing our chance to honor our elders while perhaps creating a skewed understanding of “life”. Preserving life but neglecting “life”. Length of life vs. richness of life. Favoring the god of health over the beauty of being well together.
Consider for a moment what you value most. For most people, it is time with those they care about, connection with community, and meaningful engagement in what matters. Older folks hold the same values; they just need help in bringing people and connection and engagement into their world. That is, then, our job, and we owe it to them to do a far better job. Meanwhile, shall we reconsider how we view “life”?
Grateful for my wise teachers,
Jill
©Jill Couch