My maternal grandfather, who died at eighty, gently resisted all attempts to move him out of his home as he aged. He was reasonably healthy, and had various ladies who came in for half a day to cook him a hot meal and do light housekeeping. He always said he wanted children coming to his door on Halloween, that he enjoyed talking to his younger neighbors about their jobs, and that the sound of the school bus reminded him daily of the importance of education. In turn, his neighbors liked and respected this gentlemanly, quiet, dignified man in their midst, and their notes of appreciation at his death were heartwarming.
My paternal grandmother took another approach. She left the apartment she had lived in for many years and loved, to move into a retirement home so that her children who were scattered over the country and globe would not have to worry about her. Stoically, she left the hustle and bustle of downtown for a small apartment in the suburbs that overlooked trees and a park. The move was softened somewhat by the fact that she had a car and could get out and about. When the brand new beltway was opened around Washington, DC in the sixties, she got in her car and drove the entire circuit just to see the new road and where it went.
This is the conundrum of old age. Do you stay in the home that is familiar and comfortable, or do you move into a community of people all your own age where there is all sorts of assistance and medical care available?
Now that I am in this position I understand what my grandfather was reaching for. He wanted to live in a normal community surrounded by all ages and all types of people. He wanted to walk out into his yard and see a young boy flying by on his bike, or hear the shrieks of joyous children from the pool two doors down. While he didn’t approve of the way a new driver roared up the hill at a speed he thought too fast, or like the sound of car radios blaring out music that he was not familiar with, he was still engaged with the world.
My grandmother, on the other hand, gave up her home in the interest of not worrying her family. Healthy meals were served daily in the facility dining room, there was a clinic with a nurse on duty, and a daily check to make sure she was not lying hurt in her apartment unnoticed. Yet because of who she was, all of us beat a path to her door. We joined her on Sunday evenings for a meal, took new boyfriends and spouses to meet her, and kept her up-to-date on our lives. She was engaged well beyond the walls of the retirement community.
Perhaps that is the key ----- not where you live, but how you live. Old age stiffens the body, but it does not have to stiffen the mind. One can stay engaged with the world no matter where one lives. The younger generation is not all good nor all bad, they are just people trying to make it through life as we did. And we owe it to them, and ourselves, to keep actively engaged in the world as it is, no matter where we live.