I am a senior citizen living alone in the world’s largest senior community. But I am not alone or lonely, because there are 75,000 other seniors living here.
We are grateful for the opportunity to live independently, have our own friends and participate in all the activities that keep us mentally and physically active. However, the universal concern of all of us is “what if I fall or become ill and no one knows?”
Sometimes, our senior minds tell us we can do things our senior bodies cannot. I recently escaped unscathed in a home accident but I was reminded that my neighbors were less fortunate
This winter, a man in my neighborhood gave his next-door neighbor a key to his house and said “if my newspaper is still in the driveway at 8:00 in the morning, check on me.” The neighbor watched for the newspaper every day. But one early rainy morning, another ‘good’ neighbor threw the wet newspaper closer to his door.
Unfortunately, the man had fallen and broken his hip that night. He was conscious but immobile on the bathroom floor. No one knew. Only when the next day’s newspaper remained in the driveway did his next-door neighbor knock on the door and find him, alive but in tremendous pain.
Another neighbor, a healthy 80-year woman, was pulling weeds in her fenced garden when she tripped on a garden hose and broke her leg. She cried out “help me” repeatedly but the temperature was in the high 80’s and neighbors in their air-conditioned homes heard nothing, saw nothing. The next day, a little dog, out for a walk, pulled his owner to the fence and refused to leave. The owner heard the almost inaudible cries of the woman … who by then had suffered sunstroke as well.
Both the man and the woman had children in another state who tried to ’stay in touch’. But the children have jobs and children of their own. Their day is filled with cooking meals, housecleaning, getting the kids off to school and extra-curricular activities, supervising homework, spending a little time with their husbands… as well as working 8 hours a day.
A call to their parent once or twice a week was routine but it wasn’t enough. Imagine the guilt of knowing your mother or father suffered alone for so long.
I don’t want my children to feel guilty.
