Families and Aging: Loss and Challenges

[Ivan Seeking]

DOWNER WARNING

One of the most painful parts of growing older has been the loss of family. Perhaps the saddest part for me is that my siblings and I have grown apart. I'm only close with one of three now. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and now one parent, are gone. Geography and time has dulled the close connection once felt with other family members. Additionally, over time, even old friends tend to drift away. A few years ago, my closest friend for 30 years died.

I guess it is even more poignant given that we don't have kids, but I know other people have talked about the same sense of loss, with age. Once the kids move out, life can change dramatically. The empty nest syndrome can be pretty tough for some folks. Often, the kids were their entire life, so the sense of loss can be even worse. Suddenly people find themselves isolated.

Also, it seems that as we age, we find it harder to tolerate each other. I know this is true for me and other people I've known. Some of the distance is certainly self-imposed on my part. There are people I love with whom I've spent a great deal of time, but now my patience wears thin pretty quickly. A little time goes a long way. So while it is sad, it seems to be a natural progression.

I'm a little sad as I had to make a difficult decision recently. This was the motivation for the thread.

 

[DanP]

Also, it seems that as we age, we find it harder to tolerate each other. I know this is true for me and other people I've known. Some of the distance is certainly self-imposed on my part. There are people I love with whom I've spent a great deal of time, but now my patience wears thin pretty quickly. A little time goes a long way. So while it is sad, it seems to be a natural progression.

I'm a little sad as I had to make a difficult decision recently. This was the motivation for the thread.

It's not necessarily true, look at importance some Latin families give to the family and how many of them stick together, or in close contact. And those specific clans are united usually around an elder member of the family.

As for the second, if you had to distance yourself from a member of your family because he/she was sucking the life out of you , you did the right thing. You have to protect yourself.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It's not necessarily true, look at importance some Latin families give to the family and how many of them stick together, or in close contact. And those specific clans are united usually around an elder member of the family.

Sure, but that doesn't exclude the possibility that they drive each other nuts.

Maybe it runs in the family. It was widely believed that my great-uncle killed my grandfather [1934].

As for the second, if you had to distance yourself from a member of your family because he/she was sucking the life out of you , you did the right thing. You have to protect yourself.

Hard drugs and alcohol. I won't stick around and watch the death spiral...again. There are definitely times when self-preservation comes into play.

 

[BobG]

I just returned from a family reunion for Christmas. It was an extremely good Christmas as none of us six kids live even in the same state. I don't even remember the last time I saw one of my sisters before this Christmas, it had been so long.

We went bowling with her, her daughter, and her granddaughter as well as my brother and two other sisters while my dad watched. From my dad to my sister's granddaughters, we had four generations there that day.

On the other hand, leaving was sad. My dad has had Parkinson's for several years now and seems to age ten years every time I see him. He's had to give up driving and has trouble doing things for himself. Whether the Parkinson's or just getting old, he seems to be getting to the point where when I say my good-byes at the end of a visit, there's the realization that there's a good chance it good be the last chance I ever see him in person. I'm still not sure how to think about that.

 

[cobalt124]

My youngest of three children has just hit double figures, so I'm beginning to think about what its like once all of them have flown the nest. Over the years I've lost touch with friends as we grew apart basically and have had to shed the members of the extended family that were disruptive. I'm more confident I can deal with this now than I would have been in the past, realising now that life is about change, and you can't change that! I'm just taking it as it comes, and seeing (and making) the positive in it.

Reading through your posts, the decision was clearly the right one. Sometimes you can only do so much for someone and you have to decide to step back for whatever reason, it's right, it's self preservation, or whatever the reason.

We all drive each other nuts too sometimes. At first I struggled with this, but I'm used to it now.

 

[BobG]

Just today, I had to check on a friend's elderly mother. My friend's mother lives with her, but my friend is visiting someone out of town over the holidays. The mother hasn't been answering her calls and she was beginning to worry about her.

One of the reasons my friend was trying to contact her mother is that she noticed her mom had bounced three checks and wanted the mother to quit writing checks. Turned out the bounced checks (9 of them, not the 3 my friend knows about) were the reason the mother didn't want to answer her daughter's phone calls.

It's tough when a person's parents reach the stage where they can't really care for themselves anymore. My friend's mother can't drive anymore, either, and it was good to check on her. We just had a snow storm here and it turns out the mother took a spill from slipping on the ice. Fortunately, she only suffered a bruised shin, but at her age a fall could have had some serious consequences being alone as she was. Fortunately, a neighbor and another friend have also been checking on the mother. In fact, the neighbor shoveled her driveway after the storm and brought over some food when he found out she'd taken a fall.

I can see things getting worse, soon, though. My dad's problems are getting to the point where my mom worries about leaving him alone in the house for just a couple of hours. That is going to get really rough on my mom if things get to the point where she has no life at all outside the house.

In fact, I kind of marvel at the contrast between how my mom and how my friend are handling their respective situations. My friend seems to already be building up a lot of frustration and resentment in a situation that's only going to get worse. It leaves me wondering whether my mom's attitude is a tribute to the relationship between her and my dad or whether all people are human and it's only a matter of time before my mom starts counting down the days towards freedom.

But I am pretty sure I wouldn't want to rely on my friend in my old age. I also wonder how I would handle it if I were in either of those two's place. My mom was talking about one of my nephews, saying he had a caregiver personality, comparing him to me. Maybe I do or maybe I don't have a caregiver personality and maybe she's just saying that because I endured so many years married to an alcoholic. However, I eventually said enough and got rid of her, so I'm pretty sure I'm a person that can only go so far in the caregiving department. I'm not sure how I'd endure a situation where the other person's only crime was to get old.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It's tough when a person's parents reach the stage where they can't really care for themselves anymore.

Even worse, when they are no longer capable of making good decisions but they don't know that. It is a long story, but my mother was in terrible shape for about seven years. Dad already had a heart attack and heart surgery, and we knew he wasn't doing well again. Mom was taking as much morphine as they could give her without killing her, and dad just wasn't thinking right anymore. He was easily confused and there were strong indications that he had issues. They lived about 100 miles from the nearest relatives. Things were out of control and there was no one close enough to help out on a daily basis. Not only that, if they were both down at the same time, there would be no one to help either of them. It was also clear that the housing market was on its way down and they needed to cash out for their retirement money, before they lost it. In the end, I took the bull by the horns and not only insisted that they move, but was able to secure an apartment in an assisted living facility near my sisters, which is where they wanted to move, that has put them on a long waiting list. Before he died, by father made it clear that I had forced him out of his home. I don't think he ever forgave me.

I've known people who went through similar experiences with their parents. They don't understand that their minds just aren't working right anymore, so they become extremely bitter towards those trying to help them.