MANAGING OLD PEOPLE [F, 11-15-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—MANAGING OLD PEOPLE [F, 11-15-24]

 

Long-time friend Bob Hammel, the great Hoosier sports writer, had to move recently, with wife Julie, to a retirement home, because neither of them can drive now. Bob and I have always shared coffee and conversation together, so I go out for a morning each week, to drink from the cup that never runs dry, continuing that eternal conversation. [Which is more upbeat this year since Indiana U actually has a football team, rather than a bunch of guys who run around the field doing football-like activities without actually playing football.]

Bob and I often talk about the changes that old age brings, and how old people don’t need as much help as younger people think we do. Well, we might need it, but we don’t want it.

Younger people think that what we need most is security; we should sit in a chair and never move, so that we don’t fall. We don’t want to fall, but we don’t want just to sit in that chair, either. Unless we feel like it. Then we want to be left alone instead of doing the “socializing” that younger people think we need. [I don’t think younger people are going to come out very well in this column, regardless of what they do.]

I was touting independence in one of our conversations, on the theory that any skills and knowledge we suspend, we’ll end up being unable to do at all, so that it’s important to keep doing it so we don’t lose it. Bob, who is a truly wise man, said, “More importantly is the sense of self-worth you get by being able to keep doing things for yourself.”

Well, yes, and that’s where I had the most trouble when I was doing things for my parents when they were in their 80s and 90s, and I was a younger person, in my 50s and 60s.

The problem was: my parents wanted to do for themselves, and they couldn’t. My father was blind and my mother was basically an invalid. Helen and I would work out some plan for them, sometimes at their request, and at the last minute, they’d play fruit-basket-upset. They became both a frustration and a management problem.

Even though it wasn’t exactly my fault—because they really were a management problem—I still feel bad about treating them as such. They probably did not even notice, because they were wrapped up in their own emotions and relationships, and I was surprisingly patient. [And my wife was unsurprisingly competent.] But I knew that I was treating them like a management problem rather than like my parents. I was treating them like I would treat any other cantankerous old person, and, as a pastor, I had plenty of experience with cantankerous old people.

Is there a life lesson here for old people? One I can apply myself? Yes. Don’t be a management problem for your children… oh, wait, that doesn’t sound quite right… oh, here we go… Don’t be a management problem…

John Robert McFarland