Photo: Gavin Young, PostMedia Network
“Who has a harder fight than he who is striving to overcome himself?” asked Thomas a Kempis, a copyist and writer who lived a monastic life in the 1400s.
Overcoming ourselves. What does that mean, exactly? In some lives, it may mean overcoming a toxic upbringing with parents who, for whatever reasons, were never able to meet your needs. In spite of that you decided that somewhere deep inside you was the stuff you needed to rise above the madness and confusion of that early start. You did it!
I came into this world as a person with disability and I will leave it the same way. Persons with challenges to daily living strive every waking moment to overcome that ‘thing’ which makes life exhausting. Parents of children with challenges go through every day wondering if they’re doing enough, striving to overcome their own fears about whether they’re doing it right. They and we are striving to overcome ourselves. We can create a better version of ourselves with hard work and a stick-to-itivness while being open to allowing others into our world. Everybody needs a little help sometimes. My age and changing abilities make asking for help essential to continued independent living.
Our province has many opportunities within the ranks of the 50-80 year old set to accomplish great things. Think about the vast resources of knowledge that could be tapped to benefit youngsters just starting out, particularly those about to enter the world of academia with their first day of school. It’s time for developing more inter-generational programs and services and ensuring they are sustained.
At the same time as our aging population is, well, aging, they could be enlisted to share their stores of experience, particularly with regard to their worklife and what attributes they see as critical to success. For me, reading and writing come to mind. While our aging population involves itself in providing service through volunteering their time and energies to youngsters and the community at large, the powers that be have a duty to support them in their healthy and safe aging. Aging in place, though the ideal, poses inherent challenges and is becoming more of a struggle for those who have had to let go of doing even the most routine of daily tasks. Things pile up, even important home maintenance requirements fall by the wayside. All some among us need is a hand up; it’s not always about a hand-out of the monetary kind, though that does help.
Make no mistake about that — a hand out, an extended hand to help a neighbour who needs it is not just a nice thing to do, it’s a necessary thing to do. Necessary, given that in our own daily lives, we have family and friends who are aging in place but we can’t always meet their needs because we live in another province, perhaps, in another country. We help when and where we can and hope our old neighbours are picking up the slack, doing for our families what we cannot do. We’re doing it for someone else in that new place we call home.
The unfortunate nature of the beast is that the cost of living is so wrapped up in dollars and cents. What about the physical and emotional costs of living? Seniors still living in their own home are often overlooked when it comes to goods and services and taking a look at what they need to stay healthy, well and safe. Often, they’re overlooked because so many seniors don’t ‘sign up’ for services, fully convinced they can do it all on their own. Until the great fall!
In the broader sense, it costs far less for the overseers of programs subsidized by government funding to be proactive in advance of full-time need of service. In expanding in-home services that are affordable, seniors would be better equipped to overcome themselves and their age-related deficiencies without feeling that they’re useless and totally helpless; self-defeating talk only makes the situations worse. As a consequence, the likelihood of extended period of independent living is made possible and care plans that include leaving the home and hearth of decades can be put on the back burner.
Long nursing home wait lists and hospitals congested with waiting patients have been plaguing systems of care for years. What if the very space that will work is right under the roof of the person in need of extended care? Imagine that! Government entities responsible for overseeing budgets and placements can overcome themselves by more clearly seeing what’s right in front of them. and those seeking assistance can contribute to ovecoming their own worst impulses by asking for help. You don’t get if you don’t ask.
Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton, NB with her aging Australian silky terrier and rambunctious Maltese. She can be reached via email at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca
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