Dying at home shouldn't be a luxury
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by Carlin Yandle |
Columns
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I've always reacted with some alarm when hearing some fresh-faced 25-year-olds' early retirement plans.
I can't relate to their talk about working like stink so they can grind it all to a halt the day they turn 50 and drive off into the sunset in a great convoy of RVs.
My position has always been that two decades down the road is too far to see, so it's best not to make any plans at all. (I also think six months is a lifetime away, so that when the dentist asks how I feel about a Jan. 16 appointment, I just sort of shrug. Sure, I say, non-committally; anything could happen.)
But lately I've been rethinking this whole long-view philosophy - not the view toward some two-decade semi-nomadic lifestyle, but much longer off, to the days when all my senses start to disintegrate and my shriveled brain is sick with confusion. I'm thinking I need to save up a lot of money for those days.
This is the kind of thing I think about when I step through the threshold of a resthome to visit elderly relatives.
Oh, sure; the wards are satisfactorily clean and cheery and the staff are efficient and caring, but they're nobody these relatives knew a year or two before. My maternal grandmother spent the last precious years of her life in one of these "extended care facilities", surrounded by other near-expiring people nodding off in front of the too-loud communual TV. Two other elderly relatives are currently quite out of their minds in similar wards, walking the hallways or feuding with their minds. All their knicknacks and favorite bits of furniture are long gone; only the odd framed photo of extended family members remains.
These kind of bedside visits lead to dark thoughts that most of us wouldn't want to admit aloud: please, don't let me die like this. Don't strip me of my familiarity and move me into a place like this, even if I do lose all my faculties.
Since there's no way to choreograph one's natural departure from this world, I figure the best plan is to keep socking away those RRSPs. That way, maybe after my mind and body lets me down, the old bank account will still exert some power and control over my circumstances. The trouble is, I think it's going to take a lot more money than I'll ever make. The kind of money that the elderly employer of my great aunt, her domestic, had.
My mother and I once visited this great aunt at the home of this well-heeled old lady after her demise. I was shocked by what I felt was a home fit for the queen: an expansive apartment appointed with French provincial furniture and bone china figurines, with a breathtaking view over Stanley Park. It had been arranged that my great aunt would get a tidy bonus for remaining with her employer to her death, which she did in good faith. There may have also had a private nurse in the end.
The very rich don't end up in rest homes, like my elderly relatives; they live out their final days in the dignity of their own environment.
I'm not holding out that I'll be one of the lucky few who will live a long life and then pass away quickly, like my Grandma Flo, who died at home in the company of her piano, plants, and paintings by her only son.
I figure it's going to take some cold, hard cash.
