Out of the blue, a writer sent me her book about her
experience of taking over for her elderly mother when she became unable to cope
with those “activities of daily living” (ADLs) we all take for granted…until we
can’t. Part memoir, part handbook for other adult children, Nine Realities
of Caring for an Elderly Parent jolted me
into a sneak preview of what my end of life might be like.
With significant differences.
Not all of us at this stage of life will be blessed with a
devoted daughter like the author, Stefania Shaffer. Remarkably, Shaffer zooms in to the task after
being completely estranged from her mother, and misjudged by her, for
years. Suddenly offered an olive
branch, she goes to visit, where she is confronted with a mother in a worn blue
bathrobe going blind from macular degeneration and in the habit of falling,
amidst the utter chaos and neglect of what had been her childhood home, a
situation become so derelict that she will feel required to leave her own life
and move back home to provide care.
Without blinking, without second thoughts, and with no
resentment, she does it -- and she’s rewarded, by falling in love with the
handsome roofer who comes to fix the roof.
It reads like a fairy tale; and maybe it is. A lot is left
out of this halcyon story, and one suspects that those details that might fill
out the story are left on the same shelf as the financial information she
chooses to reference only obliquely, substituting “trees” for dollar amounts.
But luckily at every stage there is money to do what needs to be done, from
replacing the wall-to-wall carpets to hiring a full time hospice caregiver.
But even lacking those and other tender details of how their
relationship was repaired and sustained during these difficult final years, the
book manages to convey a lot of useful information set in a flowing and
readable narrative.
Introducing her story, Shaffer outlines the growing need for
care of older adults, the costs of professional care and the rising number of
Americans (nearly ten million in 2011) trying to provide it themselves. Then
she lists the qualities needed by the family caregiver: “mobile enough to relocate or ability
to provide extra bedroom and bath space, trustworthy, alert, non-drug user, non
smoker, reliable, observant, savvy, organized, multi-tasker, patient, creative
cook, dietitian, pharmacist, nurse, non-alarmist, soother, committed,
non-traveler…” and more.
It’s a hard bill to fill!
Even now, having read the whole thing and put it down for a
week while attending to other projects, I, a 72-year-old reasonably healthy
mother feel a shudder of fear as I take another look at this warm hearted,
reasonable and capable depiction of an experience I hope I will never live to
see. But who can know how it all may end? We try our best, faithfully taking
the daily walk, going to swimming and yoga classes, eating as much fresh
produce as the budget will allow… Trying to maintain some form of social life,
staying mentally active, even holding a job… all the good things we see on
NPT’s “Next Avenue” or AARP’s “Life Reimagined,” everything designed to
counteract the negative images we carry about old age, and all to the good, but
in the end, for most of us, there’s that lingering decline in which care is the
ultimate concern – the person to care, and the money to provide for it. So many
elders are lacking in one or both. The unwillingness or certainly reluctance of
so many of our adult children to attend to the needs of aging parents, even
before the situation attains this catastrophic level, though uncounted, appears
to be fairly widespread; and with so many pressures and demands on their time,
this lack of attention is not entirely surprising. The failure of many boomers
to provide financially for their old age is another factor; they (I should say,
we!) can’t provide properly for our own care, and, let’s face it, our
children’s motivation is somewhat reduced by their awareness that they often
cannot expect a significant reward for the enormous time and energy commitment
that will be demanded of them.
All around, it’s a complex, daunting picture with no
solution in sight. Reading about the wonderful devotion and skill of Stefania
Shaffer, we can only pray that we may be blessed with something approximating
the loving care her mother received – despite their estrangement – and that
caregiving families generally will receive more support from government funded
social programs than they are enjoying now.
It’s a difficult road, but caring has its rewards for the
giver, and those of us forced to depend on it can learn to be sweet, as
Shaffer’s mother was, thanking Stefania every single day and always telling her
how wonderful she was. In this “love affair of a different kind,” despite the
labor and the stress, the intimacy of caregiving can be a gift to us in a
society aching from isolation, loneliness, hopelessness and lack of purpose.
Here at the difficult end of life, we may find the tenderness and meaning we
crave.
