I visited a friend in one of those super-fancy-schmancy assisted living places. Her apartment (that’s right, she lives in an apartment) has two big rooms, a charming kitchenette and, get this, a walk-in closet. There are two dining rooms to choose from, one casual and one formal, a pool, gardens to stroll through, a chapel, a meditation room, and a bowling alley. They have lecture series and book clubs and speakers and movie night. There are snacks available 24/7.
When she saw my mouth hanging open in awe, she said you should get your name on the waiting list. It’s four years out.
My interior monologue went something like this: This place must cost the proverbial arm and both legs. But if I sold my little Vineyard cabin at peak sellers’ market, I could probably live there for a few hours. When you’re 84, four years out is wayyy too far in the future to make any plan other than finding out where the nearest crematorium is.
When my Aunt Shirley was 87, she used to joke, “No point buying green bananas.”
I remember when my mother was in her 70s and she came out here to visit. I adored her and told her she was never, ever, ever going to a home for the aged (that’s what they called those places then).
The week she was here I led a writing workshop, so every morning while I was getting ready with my usual rushed routine, it seemed my mom needed something that kind of threw me off my center.
The first morning she called from the bedroom and said, “Honey, can you come help me do the hospital corners on my bed. And also I need a little dish for my vitamins.”
Of course, I had said yes, and ran in with a pretty little bowl and helped her make the bed.
The next day she asked me if it wouldn’t be too much trouble to go down to the Chilmark Store and get her one of those bran muffins. Or was it cranberry walnut? She said she couldn’t remember but it was the one she loved last summer.
I jumped in the car, raced to the store, came back with the muffin, and with a little anxiety continued getting ready for the class, which was about to arrive. Each morning she needed something that added minutes to my schedule.
The third afternoon she asked if I could find that classical music station and set her up with a nice tuna fish sandwich; she’d be happy to just stay home and read. I made the sandwich with her favorite barbecue potato chips and sweet mixed pickles, put them on a beautiful antique china dish with a teeny vase with a small bunch of zinnias, kissed her on the top of her curly silver head and ran out the door to my car.
I drove up to Radar Hill and ran my 3.1 miles. While I was huffing and puffing I kept thinking, What was I thinking? If this was demanding now, what would it be like when she was really old? This was just a preview, and she had me jumping.
I meant it when I told her she would not go to a home for the aged, but the reality was hitting me square in my guilt-ridden gut.
As I was agonizing, ruminating, and worrying, I suddenly remembered a story I had heard from my teacher, Ram Dass, about a young Chinese man tilling his fields. He looks up and sees his old father on the porch. He thinks to himself, He doesn’t work. He just sits and costs me a fortune. All I do is work to feed him. That’s it. I have to get rid of him.
So he builds a box, puts it on the wheelbarrow and drives it up to his father on the porch and says, “Father, I can no longer afford you. Get in.”
The father climbs in, and the man pushes him up the mountain, and just as he’s about to tip him over, he hears a desperate knocking.
“What is it, Father?” he says.
The old man says, “I understand what you are doing. But save the box. Your son will need it.”
I don’t think I’ve ever actually run down Radar Hill, but I got home faster than the speed of light on a dimmer switch.
I grabbed my mother, held her in my arms and said, “When you’re ready we will add an in-law apartment. You will be moving in with us.”
We never did have to add the extra space. She did move in with us for a while (and she was delightful and easy), but really wanted to live in a community with friends her own age. She moved to the Hebrew Home in West Hartford, and loved her last years with her people.
That was 30 years ago.
Now it’s my turn. Maybe I should get on that waiting list. Or just give my son this column. And a wooden box.
