The day before my dad died, everyone in the family went to see him. It was a coincidence, more or less. His health had been up and down, and home hospice had been set up for him. The weather the next week was supposed to be miserable, record-breaking rain in San Francisco, so everyone wandered over to the house that day to say, “hi,” and spend some time before the storms hit.
Earlier this month, we celebrated Grandparents Day, which took place on Sept. 10. That date also marked the beginning of National Suicide Prevention Week. If these events seem unrelated, brace yourself for bad news.
I was helping my friend move into town recently, and for two days, we were unable to put the bed together because he had misplaced the special screws in the packing process. They were somewhere among the diverse piles of boxes. He was sure he’d stashed them in a safe place, but that fact didn’t make him feel any better during those two days of wondering and turning around and then wondering again.
“The power is off again!” my Aunt Sylvia exclaimed into the phone. This wasn’t the first time I’d received a call from her like this. In fact, this was the second time in the last year that her power had been shut off and she’d called me in a tizzy.
Sometimes, the people who fall through the cracks aren’t the ones we’d necessarily expect to. But that’s how it has been for approximately 14,000 adults with middle-range incomes in San Francisco. These adults, some of whom are living with disabilities, face unique challenges when it comes to having access to the home care they need because their incomes surpass the federal poverty threshold, which disqualifies them from obtaining subsidized benefits, but they don’t make enough to pay for private home care.
Getting stuck in a cycle of overwhelming days and restless nights may be quite common in our driven culture, but that doesn’t mean this way of living is reasonable or negligible. You may be able to normalize this kind of lifestyle in your mind, but it will wear you down and create greater consequences over time.
Death, for many of us, is a sad and scary thought. Whether it’s losing a loved one or being faced with our own mortality, pain, suffering, and fear typically flood the forefront of our minds. After all, as human beings, we are biologically wired to be afraid of the unknown, and death is the greatest unknown of all.
Human beings are, by nature and habit, prone to entropy and pattern. It is hard for us to make changes unless changes are forced upon us. How many times do we wake up, look around, and realize we’ve been drinking the same coffee every day for five years, or been in the same job for a decade, or the same house for as long as we can remember?
I’ll never forget the day my grandpa fell in the shower and couldn’t get up. Thankfully, the cordless phone was close enough to reach, so he called my mom. Without saying a single word, she got in her car and drove an hour to my grandpa’s home to help him up. He was pretty injured from the fall, and my mom was devastated. That’s when she decided to help him move into a nursing home.
I knew something had to change when I fell asleep at the wheel and nearly got into an accident. I’d just completed a long and stressful evening of parent-teacher meetings, and I was driving to check up on my aging father.
Institute on Aging (IOA) CONNECT is your direct line to us and the starting point for help with your concerns about the needs of older adults and adults with disabilities. IOA CONNECT links you with our services, as well as community services available. Reach out to connect with us.
Phone: (415) 750 – 4111 | Fax: (415) 750 – 5338
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