in decline

This is what it's like to be in your 50s and for most of your friends to be in their 50s too...

This weekend:

• visited a friend whose 87 year old mother is recovering from pneumonia - it will be weeks before she's walking again
• visited another friend who's just returned from England to check up on both parents in a nursing home, one from strokes, the other with dementia
• dinner with a friend who told of visiting an 86 year old man in hospital - cops had to be called to his home when he had fallen and didn't answer the door
• news came by telephone of further confused behaviour by my 87 year old father-out-of-law
• finally scattered the ashes of my own father, four years after his death.

Comments

[elsewhere]

Well, I think you're really lucky having a child. That's one of the things that worries me about getting older, not having links to younger generations.

[Susan]

(o)

[susoz]

Elsewhere, I do feel very lucky to be around children and it does help in coping with the relentless round of bad news about the over-80s.
On the other hand, it demonstrates to me how important it is to have siblings who join with you in caring for elderly parents - in all these stories above, siblings were involved in discussing, planning and carrying out care for the old people concerned. That makes me worried about my only child's possible future burden. (But I guess there's little point in worrying about the distant future.)

[Jacinta]

It is easier to share the pain and responsibility of a parent's death if you have a sibling but not all siblings are equally helpful. Further to political musings have you read the blog The Piping Shrike? S/he has some interesting theories concerning the new Government. Thanks for telling your readers about The Thoughtful Dresser. I really enjoy it.

[JenniferV]

This post struck lots of chords with me... a very dear friend of our fsmily, a widowed, childless 83 year old, died alone in hospital on the South Coast last weekend (well, he had nurses with him, but no family or friends). I think part of the problem was that because I'm not a blood relative, the hospital didn't call to say he was dying until it was too late to get there in time... but on the other hand, if he had been my father or grandfather, perhaps I would have dropped everything to be with him earlier in the week when the news was bad but not necessarily terminal, instead of rationalising that I was 7 months pregnant and too busy finishing up at work and looking after two other children to tackle the 3 hour drive then and would go down to see him at my own convenience in a week or so. And my sister was in Perth for the weekend so there was no sibling back-up.