Photo: Elinor Carucci/Ricco/Maresca Gallery
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Who Will Be Me for Me?
By Barbara Gordon, May-June 2002
In caring for her elderly mother, a loving daughter learns to be resourceful about preparing for her own old age.
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Don't forget, Mother, tonight's The Sopranos.
"Why don't you take a nap this afternoon so you'll be able to stay awake and see it?"
Fifteen hundred miles may separate us, but I am as vigilant from my New York City apartment as I am when I visit my 92-year-old mother in Florida. For eight years after my father's death she lived alone, but since a recent fall that required surgery for a broken hip and a fractured shoulder, she has round-the-clock health-care workers helping with her daily activities. While she deals with the assaults that time has visited on her body and her dignity, her mind remains as sharp as ever.
Every day in New York I am immersed in a sea of mother-related activities—countless phone calls, a blitz of faxes and e-mails to the growing number of doctors and physiotherapists in charge of her care. Reeling from the cost of her prescription medications, I confer with pharmacists about the dangers of drug interactions and struggle to understand arcane Medicare rules. In the midst of it all, a troubling question begins to emerge, and it will not be pushed aside: Who will be me for me?
If the time arrives when I myself need a Barbara, who will monitor the doctors who hurry in and out of a hospital room without answering the fistful of questions that someone (who?) has written the night before? Who will post notes on the refrigerator reminding me which pill to take and when? Or serve up tidbits of gossip to keep me engaged in the world? Who will listen to my fears and tread that fine line between empathy and pity, compassion and coddling?
I ponder my own future and that of my friends. Some, like me, are childless and living on their own; some have children scattered around the country. Who will be there for us? I ask them.
Most, whatever their situation, say they aren't counting on anyone to help them with the challenges of the future. Boomers whose parents are still flourishing react with blank expressions. They haven't thought about it; they don't want to start now. But my query insinuates itself into their consciousness and stirs an avalanche of emotions, none of them pleasant. One friend says tartly, "We will be us for each other. There are armies of us." She thinks for a moment, then adds, "Of course, our armies are diminishing. Do you think we ought to start cultivating younger friends?"
So now, with the question out there on the table, we begin to study the issues that could lurk ahead—money problems, feelings of powerlessness and invisibility, social isolation, physical disability, chronic pain, diminished memory—all the stigmata of aging. And, like generals planning a campaign, we mount an exploration into the uncharted territory of our own futures, arming ourselves for situations that may soon be staring us in the face.
Not so long ago, we had spirited dinner conversations about the latest books and movies. Today, we also share news about advances in bone-density scans, colonoscopies, and dental work, and we consult financial advisers, hoping not to add money problems to the list of obstacles we may encounter.
My practical concerns are clear: Where will I live? How will I live?
Will I have enough money? Who will care for me if I become physically diminished? What if I fall? What if, as my mother has, I lie on the floor for three nights and two days until someone discovers me? Will I someday have to leave my home?
I find myself poring over brochures describing long-term health-care policies, trying to figure out how many dollars a day of insurance I'll need for how many hours and how many days, and how many thousands of dollars this raft of security will cost me and for how many years, until the day, God forbid, when I'll need it. My friends join me when insurance agents come by to pitch policies. Now I pay a small ransom each year for the privilege of knowing that someone will take care of me in my own apartment, should that be required.
The specter of social isolation is an obsession we all share, whatever our circumstances. We toy with the notion of communal living, creating an enclave of like-minded friends. There are other alternatives—a cousin of mine functions as a family spy and gives me daily reconnaissance reports on my mother's shifting moods. A 50-year-old friend was concerned about his 80-year-old mother, who insisted on remaining in her Indianapolis home. On a recent visit, he dug around the neighborhood and encountered a charming couple who live nearby. After engaging in small talk, he invited them over for dinner, and now these neighbors look in on his mother regularly. Telling me this, he asks, "Who's going to scout out my neighborhood when I'm eighty?"
As for me, I hope that someday someone in my family enlists a spy on my behalf. But for now, living alone in a New York City apartment, I have made a point of getting to know my neighbors, and as a result, I hope that someone in my building will notice if three days' worth of newspapers is piled up outside my door.
A larger issue looms behind the practicalities: Who will be "me" for me in soul-nurturing ways? Who will flag the new movies in advance? Who will add anticipation to my life, weaving bits of expectation out of fragile wisps of reality? Who will offer, as a perceptive writer once said, "the courage to go on when you know the best of times are past"?
After tracking every nuance of my mother's existence for eight years, I realize that the way I live now will affect the quality of my old age. So I'm trying to invest in a wider world. I have friends of all ages, and, to make sure that my doctors will be there when I really need them, I fill my medical Rolodex with men and women far younger than I. In an attempt to be prudent, I am spending less and saving more, eating more carefully and exercising more often.
Meanwhile, I've found an affordable item that can save my life. On her wrist, my mother wears a buzzer that she can use in an emergency to alert 911, me and my brother. I promise myself to get one at a certain age. I wonder when will that be?
Despite all my reflection and preparation, I am still not certain how I would stem the tide of losses my mother must acknowledge with every tap of her four-pronged cane. As she once spoon-fed me portions of life, now I serve her dollops of hope, always mindful of the shrinking horizon of her expectations and her low tolerance for nonsense.
As for my question, I've come to realize that I'll have to be "me" for me—as much as I can. I developed into womanhood at a time when women were becoming happily responsible for their own lives. In spite of that, the time may come when I'll need help, and to be responsible for myself may be a less happy option than it is now. Because of all the years I've been "me" for my mother and for myself, I'm confident (mostly) that I'll be all right. Still, there's no guarantee that if I make it to 92, the phone will ring every Sunday afternoon and a loving voice will say, "Don't forget to take your nap this afternoon, Barbara. The Sopranos goes on at nine, and I don't want you to miss it."
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