Randi Kreiss

I see the train comin’ ’round the bend

Posted

Chooga chooga chooga. Here we come, ready or not.

We are the baby boomers, and there are 74 million of us coming down the track. Once upon a time we were pretty cute, with our tie-dyed T’s and our Beatles, our Vietnam protests and our free love. Now we have artificial knees, hearing aids, a longer past and a shorter future.

And man, we have medical bills. Our eyes, our hearts, our brains, our joints all require upkeep, and it’s getting crazy expensive. For chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes, medications alone are breaking the bank.

Who will pay the bills, walk us around the block, put food on our tables and then feed us as we move into old, old age? There’s no one around to drive Miss Daisy.

I’m thinking about this for two reasons.

First, we just endured a brutal election during which there was woefully little discussion about how to prepare for the tsunami of boomers heading toward decrepitude. We heard about Donald’s genital grabbing and Hillary’s emails, but precious little about how this country will care for its oldest citizens. Both political parties have elder-care plans written into their platforms, but the proposed policies are empty without awareness, commitment and financial backing. We don’t have enough elder-care workers to deal with the growing need; we don’t have enough money to eventually house and feed and keep safe those of us now in our 60s, heading toward 70; and we don’t have government programs that are accessible and user-friendly.

Reason two is that at the moment I’m with my parents, members of the Greatest Generation, who still live on their own (with the support of a cast of thousands). To facilitate their continued well-being at ages 97 and 94, people come and go all day, from nurses and labs techs and general helpers to health aids and physical therapists and social workers.

The cost to us, and to the government, is staggering. For us, caring for our parents is an emotional roller coaster as well. Disaster is one fall away, and incidents become crises in a heartbeat.

Mind you, there are fewer than 2 million people over the age of 90 in America. We boomers, ages 52 to 70, are 74 million strong. What’s the plan? Who’s thinking about where and how we’ll live in 20 years, should we live that long? Who will do the work, and how will those workers be paid?

My parents are aging differently, and while my mother longs for stimulation and conversation, my dad is physically limited and happily drifting along. No one has a blueprint for how this should work. It’s a full-time job for more than one person to care for two very old people. There are 74 million of us on our way to being very old; do you blame me for worrying?

As I see it, isolation and loneliness are debilitating. Most folks in their 90s don’t drive anymore. Their hearing and vision are diminished. Kids and grandkids and great-grandkids do their best, but it isn’t enough. Nothing is enough to balance the weight of all that’s lost.

Recently, kind of desperate for a way to address my mother’s isolation, I asked everyone on my personal email list to write her a note, just a hello, and send it through regular mail. They started coming yesterday, and I’m here with her in Florida to see the reaction, which is astonishing. “You’ve got to see this,” she said yesterday, reading a note from someone I worked with. Her smile was genuine, and full of delight. A home run.

It’s a small thing for someone to write a note, and it reaps a huge reward. It creates human connection in an increasingly dehumanized world. I got the idea from a friend who has a sister who is sick and living alone. It’s simple and easy, so please pass it on. Who would think that we would come full circle to having pen pals in the digital age?

Still, real remedies are elusive. And this problem isn’t going away. You think there are a lot of us boomers? Look down the track. The millennials are right behind us, and there are 75.4 million of those whippersnappers.

Copyright © 2016 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com.