Is It Possible to Plan for the End of Life
I found the article “Living in the ‘after life’” in the previous Newsletter both edifying & scary. The aspect that disturbed me most was the boredom experienced by Clive Yates now that he is ‘in care’.
Growing old is not an easy stage of life. I’m not worried about being dead, but the journey between good health & death is of great concern to me as so much about it cannot be planned for, and a lot about it is likely to be messy & miserable. And being in a situation similar to Clive Yates really concerns me.
I am aged eighty-four and am blessed with relatively good health, mobility, sight & awareness, & I can still drive. At present, I am able to live an independent life in my apartment in a retirement village. [The village environment provides security but I don’t make much use of the activities & facilities provided.] I have developed a life-style that suits my personality, that I am comfortable with, and that provides me with the mental stimulation that is so important to me. However, I am aware that this situation will inevitably deteriorate in the quite near future. So, even more importantly than my life-stye being appropriate to my present stage of old age, I hope that – with adaptations as needed - it will be able to be maintained into future stages of decline and to enable me to avoid the dreaded boredom.
My present situation & life-style has two aspects.
Firstly, my weekly agenda involves a visit to one of my daughters (the other daughter lives further away, so contact has to be by phone); weekly shopping; a weekly exercise class; and doctor, dentist & other appointments as needed.
Secondly, is what I call my hermetic aspect in which I remain in my apartment &, except for phone calls, I remain silent. I am not a very social person & I am not interested in chit-chat. I spend a lot of time on the computer researching things that interest me - & there’s plenty to keep me going for many more years.
I don’t watch t.v. as such, but access programmes, nearly all of which are documentaries, via YouTube. The main topics I access are:
history – particularly British, with favourite sites being ‘The rest is history’, ‘We have ways of making you talk’, ‘Time Team’, ‘History Hit’, ‘Digging for Britain’ & programmes featuring Lucy Worsley;
all sorts of art history & cultural history programmes;
religion – favourite sites being ‘Religion for breakfast’, ‘Within reason’ & ‘Let’s talk religion’;
and, for light relief, programmes about gardens.
I buy books regularly & read a lot, mainly on topics similar to those above. I’m not a great novel reader, but when the urge to indulge in a ‘who-dun-it’ arises, I access a book from the village library.
Each day I do Tai chi walking & a range of Tai chi exercises which I can do within my apartment.
I make patchwork quilts & other hand-quilted items. I prepare my own meals but, since I turned 80, I have a cleaner to deal with the cleaning of kitchen and bathroom, & to do the vacuuming. And, last thing in the evening, I lie in the dark and listen to music.
Having said all this, & while I have developed my present life-stye for my current needs, I hope that when my health & mobility deteriorate, & I have to go into the Rest Home facility in the Village, I can largely continue my ‘hermetic’ life-stye & so avoid the dreaded boredom. Of course, if I develop a serious illness or disability, some or all of this might become impossible & the boredom will inevitably take hold; and, if I develop dementia – which is my greatest fear - none of this will be possible, so I will just have to cope with things as best as I can.
So, is it possible to plan for the end of life? Obviously I won’t know until I’m actually there, but I hope that establishing the hermetic side of my life-style will stand me in good stead.
Shirley Dixon