Getting Ready

Have you ever heard the expression “Be ready so you don’t have to get ready”?  It’s great advice and resonates with many of us who are planners and organizers. We want to make our lists and check them off.  We want to be certain we don’t forget anything. We don’t appreciate last-minute rushing and the sense of being unprepared.

And yet, so many of us are far from ready when we face major life events. Oh sure, we cannot predict a sudden illness or death. That goes without saying. Things happen and we have to deal with them. But there are other things that we can anticipate and, generally, we don’t.

I’m talking about managing the care of an aging loved one. While we all want to be those “super agers” we’ve heard about, not many are that fortunate. And bodies, as well as minds, age and begin to show some signs of decline. And, far too often, their families don’t recognize or acknowledge that decline until it becomes a crisis.

We frequently field calls from families who are in a panic because they have suddenly realized that their loved one needs help and they don’t know what to do or where to turn. Sometimes it is because they have closed their eyes to the changes, sometimes it is because change is gradual—until it isn’t, and sometimes it is because they are still filled with hope that Mom or Dad will go back to being the person they were a decade ago.

There is no judgement in this, not at all. Rather, it is human nature to expect that the people we care about are always going to be there, always going to be the person that they have always been. We don’t want to contemplate change, much less loss, and we often don’t recognize it until it is impossible to ignore.

As the child of older parents, I faced this in my 20’s, trying to manage the care of my 80+ year old father and juggling both a 4-year-old, an infant and a full-time job.  When my father had a massive heart attack, he didn’t call me although he had called for every other ache and pain. I didn’t know until I heard from the hospital the next day. And when I tried to give them his Medicare number, they asked how he could be on Medicare, he was only 47. That’s what he had told them.

I stumbled through the maze of rehabilitation and medication and home health to try and help. And, all through it I thought I needed to have a parent between Dad and me, someone who knew more than I did, someone who could manage the complexity I was struggling to figure out.

Today I know that there are many resources and many answers and many people to help. But the time to learn about services and options and care is before you need, not when you are in the middle of a difficult situation. Learn about the elder care providers in your area, become familiar with the kinds of care available in your community. Have the conversation with your loved one about what they want, the choices they would want you to make if they are unable to make them for themselves.

Being ready is also being able, able to do the right thing, able to approach difficult situations with the knowledge that you are doing your best for yourself… and for the ones you love.