I personally get frustrated when healthy adults complain about their birthdays. Even more frustrating is when adults get depressed around turning a year older. I believe that the goal in life is to get older. Because when you are not getting older… you are dead. And no one is striving for that. But that is a different topic all together.
When you look at the current aging population it is clear that we are in a bit of trouble as a country.
As the baby boomers age and begin looking for the support and care they have had their entire lives, they are shocked and horrified to find it not there and the last place they are willing to go is a “facility”. But what if we were able to change the entire conversation and the entire industry who serves them - we would have having a very different dialog.
Imagine if the goal was to be able to have enough money saved that by the time you were old you were able to move into a wonderful, beautiful place where people took care of you.
You didn’t move in to a place when there were no options left, you moved is as your first option… because you could and what a wonderful way to live. To be taken care of, cooked for, not have to mow your lawn, or clean the gutters. But rather to be be with friends, exercise and focus on things that make you happy.
Imagine a world where close long time friends planned their aging moves together into wonderful places where they could continue to see each other every day and just enjoy life together.
Instead this gigantic baby boomer generation fears the idea of "a place" as if it is worse then death itself. Why?
I think part of the reason is that the places in the past have been HORRIBLE!! And many of them still are. As a country we should be ashamed that we ever allowed one horrible nursing home to exist - forget the fact that we let them spread like ants across the country. It is like we pretended they were not there. We told ourselves that “we will never go there” and that it didn’t have to do with us.
They should never have developed into that type of experience. No one should be left to die. All people should be loved and cared for their entire life, from the first breath to the last.
It is time to say NO MORE to the nursing home of the past. And a fancy name change to “senior center” doesn't cut it. No one should be in a place that is not clean. No one should be in a place that isn't full of love and life. No one should be in a decrepit building where no one else wants to go.
It is up to us now, to make this change once and for all and move nursing homes into the past where all terrible things go. We must demand better service, care and love for all seniors.
It is our generations responsibility to not leave our senior family member alone EVER - but rather visit them often and continue to have them as the important part of our lives as they always were.
It is time to correct this mistake of the past and change how we talk about, interact with and live with seniors. Because if you are lucky, you also will be old one day and I bet the last thing you want is to die alone in a smelly, dirty room.