Help Aging Parents: Downsizing, Leaving Home, and Loss

Being smack in the middle of downsizing--preparing to move after decades in one's home--is daunting.  The thought was daunting even before we began.

Everyone comments "How exciting!" when hearing a NY city apartment awaits us. True, it is exciting to think about moving back to NYC where we lived for several years after graduate school; but we've been too busy to give much time to that kind of thinking.

Another kind of thinking continually pops into my head, however. It's the thought that moving from one's home at any age is unsettling.  When we consider the stress and feelings we experience and we've initiated the move, we can understand why thoughts of moving from their home is so distressing for older people.

 3 Reasons

If it's a move that aging parents haven't initiated, often to assisted living on a "campus" with facilities for levels of care, it's in-their-face recognition that:
---they are unable to carry on life as they have for so many decades
---others recognize this and no longer have confidence in their abilities to remain as  independent as they have been
---this is probably their last stop before the cemetery.

Moving under these circumstances understandably triggers feelings of many types of loss: of abilities, of self-esteem, of independence, of optimism.  It must be accompanied by an overarching sense of what was and what lies ahead.  For older people who feel forced to move this must be very sobering.

I think of all the memories that surface with every box and folder that is opened, with every photo and piece of saved stuff that is examined. My husband and I smile and think of how of good it was, forgetting the challenges which seemed so big at the time.

We are looking forward, not moving that far from our present community, and it's exciting.  Yet I know realistically there will be a time when we will look back, assuming we reach a ripe old age. Upon reaching 89 Dad often said, "When you can look back many more years than you can look forward, you know you're old." I truly don't think he felt old until he began saying that.

Perhaps it's because he never had to move, he never confronted that kind of sobering change and the feelings of loss that go with it. Yet clearly, living that long, Dad experienced many kinds of loss.

Understanding the components of moving--which involve change, energy, downsizing, and organization and loss--provides us with sensitivity to their impact and understandings to help our aging parents and think twice before initiating unnecessary change. Won't it also help us when the time comes?

Check out my other site: http://helpparentsagewell.com.  Same blog, more information.

Downsizing--Aging Parents' Homes...How Much Energy Does It Take?

.................And whose energy?

A former colleague, Anna, now a current friend in her late 80's, phoned me yesterday to tell me she was going away for the weekend; she was also wondering how I was progressing with our downsizing.  I enumerated the things I'd been doing and the fact that I was very tired at the end of the day. I started thinking about the impact of aging on one's energy.

I remembered a lunch date with another former colleague, a year ago. Because she's almost 60, retirement was part of our discussion.  And energy was a big part of that discussion.

She's a master teacher and brilliant. She has published, has a stellar reputation and a devoted following of students. While she believes that she's an even better teacher than when she was younger, she is also aware that the energy you have at almost 60 isn't the energy you had at 50. Looking back we agreed that in your 40's you have a great deal of energy, definitely enough to spare.

I've long held the notion most of us reach our peak in our 40's, remain at that level for quite a while. Yet, almost imperceptibly, energy begins to decline. We can easily compensate for it initially because we are older and wiser. But it finally catches up with us.

Less than two years ago Anna and her husband downsized from a large home with over 50 years of accumulation to a good-sized apartment. Anna's mind is excellent, she swam daily until the house was sold and she remains interested in everything.

Her many children and grandchildren were only too happy to help these aging parents/grandparents pack and move. But Anna tells me that, although she didn't have to be concerned with the physical part, the mental energy required was tiring.  Even after showing younger people what needed to be done and how to do it, it often wasn't done just the way Anna wanted. So she did much of it herself.

Can adult children argue with that? If we're creating additional mental stress while trying to be helpful and preserve older peoples' energy, are we helping? And how do we help in a way that respects everyone's wishes, time, and abilities? If we can answer that last question, we can offer our greater supply of energy, have grateful aging parents and grandparents, and feel good.

But most of our parents (as well as ourselves) put off downsizing until we realize we aren't as able as we were and may not have the energy if we wait much longer. The earlier everyone starts, the better.

Note, Boomers:  Some children, who are old enough to care, could care less about their parents' treasures.  Some parents--aging or not, moving or not--are giving things to their children, including old photos that may or may not be in albums. (The photos  of course need identification if they're to have meaning. I think we all know the frustration of looking through an old family album lacking identification.)

It takes a lot of energy and time to go through shelves and drawers, photos and folders of papers. If you're like me with deceased parents who kept everything--you not only have your things to evaluate, but must read and double check theirs before recycling one scrap of paper. Why?  Because, for example, my parents haven't been gone long enough for me to legally shred everything.

My almost 98-year-old mil, Sr. Advisor R, on the other hand, (recently recovered from her broken hip), is conscientiously tossing or giving "stuff" weekly.  Her energy hasn't returned completely, but she is disciplined as I've written previously. Says she doesn't want us to be stuck with it.

When aging parents aren't mentally capable, it's another story. But when they can do, if we didn't know how to help before, why not reread paragraphs 7, 8, and 9? Hopefully we can adapt the concepts, help our aging parents, help ourselves, and perhaps even our children.

Unintended Consequences as We Try to Help Aging Parents

When Aging Parents Move and We Try to Help--Telephones!

Will Our Telephone # Move Too?

Unlike our cell numbers, hard-wired telephone numbers don't necessarily follow to a new residence--even when it's not very far from the previous residence. For aging parents, telephone numbers need to follow from the "get-go."Obvious? Perhaps. Under stressful conditions--perhaps not.

Unintended consequences, are just that. We don't think about them until we're left with the damage control. And if we're responsible as we try to help aging parents, it's easy to become angry with ourselves for creating an additional problem that disappoints parents and can unnecessarily involve siblings.

Background

An 85-year-old relative recently moved from her condo to assisted living--not a move she initiated. Several months of worsening mobility problems and a series of hospitalizations jeopardized living alone.

The last several years she and her 3 grown children had discussed the wisdom of moving. Friends in her condo complex had died or moved. And there was an attractive independent-living place nearby, making it easy to maintain her routines.

My relative is smart, organized, active, loved her condo of 40+ years and hung on to her independence--through many serious health events.  But last month her doctors advised she needed assisted--not independent--living. She gave in and asked her children to arrange for the move while she recovered in a hospital.

What's a telephone got to do with it?

To reiterate from past posts, connections to others is one of the 3 most important factors in healthy aging. And telephones provide a major way of connecting with others. Indeed older people may have their friends' numbers on automatic dial as memories fade.

My relative's caring, efficient children notified the phone company to close her account immediately.  It was an easy thing to cross off a long list. But then they realized she was issued a new phone number at the assisted-living facility, which had another provider.  Friends couldn't contact her.

Think about new phone numbers being a problem for aging parents and grandparents who downsize (and for their aging/old friends).  If they remain in the same area of their city/town and stay with the same phone company it's more likely that the phone number won't change. Simply tell the phone company that although the address is changing, your parents want to keep the same #.

1.  However, do not notify the phone company to stop an aging/old parent's existing phone service before asking if they can transfer the old telephone number to the new address.Otherwise the existing phone number can be given away.

2.  Check out--ahead-- the phone system/provider at the new place. When an institution has its own system or a different phone provider, it may be best to ask the person in charge to take care of having your parents' old phone number transferred immediately if it's doable. This eliminates having aging parents who just changed living situations feel even more isolated because friends can't phone them.

My relative's children report it was a hassle to get the old phone number back--took 3 weeks to accomplish.  "We were just lucky," they added.  (It may not be this difficult everywhere.)

It was simpler back in the day, when "Reach out and touch someone" was a well-known saying; when accessing a live human being on the other end of a business's line was the norm. Never-the-less we can prevent unintended consequences and, in the case of telephones, maintain that connectedness so important for older people's aging well. It doesn't take too much effort...when we know how.

Visit my new site: http://helpparentsagewell.com   Same blog, more information