This is a true story about aging and family.

A few years ago, the husband of an elderly woman passed away, leaving her with a family of two adult sons, all of them living in the same city. For a while, she was able to stay in her home, but she kept forgetting to turn off the stove and to eat some of her meals. Her sons looked in on her occasionally, and finally put her in a nursing home in a town about 25 miles away.

The 80-something woman has  been in the facility for several years and has developed Alzheimer’s disease. Her elderly friends visit when they can. Her sons rarely stop by.

I started thinking about this situation after I recently visited one of my aunts, who has been having health challenges for more than a decade. She lives with a daughter, and on the Saturday afternoon that I dropped in, the house was full of folks – another daughter, and a son, his wife and two children. There was lots of laughter and family stories. My aunt, in her 70s, spoke proudly of her youngest grandson, a 15-month-old who had just discovered the joys of running.  Just about every time I visit, some of my aunt’s children or grandchildren are at the house.

I don’t know anything about the family dynamics of the other woman, her late husband and their two sons. But it breaks my heart that as an aging, sick woman she is being ignored by her children, for whatever reasons, and left to die. My mother was told of similar circumstances during the two weeks she stayed in a nursing home to get intensive physical therapy after knee replacement surgery. 

Unfortunately, that’s the story of many elderly in this country. If you can, volunteer a  bit of time every now and then at a nursing home in your community.

Related posts:

1. Dealing with nursing home angst
2. Hanging in there after knee surgery
3. Have a wonderful journey in 2010