I was without a cell phone for about an hour and it was fantastic.  As I left the Apple store to go over to the AT & T store, I was phone less and it was very peaceful.  No texting, no rings, no emails, no alerts, no nothing.  I felt someone had taken me back to my childhood to where phones were only in houses and in phone booths.  I totally understand why seniors remember the old days and wish it was so again…my thoughts exactly as I was without a cell phone and could have fallen off the face of the earth and no one would have found me, because I did not have a cell phone!!!

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I have eaten at many retirement homes due to my creative agency that specializes in marketing for retirement and senior living communities.  I love having dinner at these places and mixing with an older generation, no matter what they do.  However, the majority of adult children come with that gorilla and place the gorilla smack dab in the center of the table and never, never, never talk about it!  Well, I want to talk about it and hopefully it will come about in another blog as the 800 lb. Gorilla part 2!  I promise to blog about this again and bring to light an issue that needs to be talked about.

My 85 year old mother decided not to go to graduation.  She made the trip out to LA four years ago to attend parents’ weekend with me and it was not pleasant.  College campuses are not friendly to seniors.  I am anxious to see how senior-friendly this graduation ceremony is since parents’ weekend was almost the kiss of death for my mother.  Anyhow, it is still sad she is not going.  My daughter is close to her and I know she would have liked to see her attend.  What would have made it easier?  What would have made me feel more comfortable taking her?  We can go to the moon, but we can’t seem to cater to seniors in general public areas especially during special occaisions.  I just read that they opened a senior ER in a hospital in Maryland, which is great!  I spent many days and nights in an ER with my dad and it was very confusing for him and my mom.  If  there are special ERs for pediatrics, why not seniors?  I think this is so wonderful and hope it catches on.  Our seniors deserve respect and care.

Back to graduation.  Life can be thought of as a series of graduations from one thing to the next.  Birth to walking, walking to running, grade school to middle school.  Even in old age, we graduate from one thing to the next, sometimes with grace, sometimes not.  As I look forward to the graduation ceremony, I wish her grandmother could have come, but our society still does not make it easy for seniors to get around all the hustle and bustle.  A slower, more peaceful time without Twitter, Facebook, iPhones and in-flight internet service might just be the ticket to a friendlier environment for our seniors to enjoy those special occasions. How do we do this?

Please just take a look if you can at the series or the website. We all are going to be touched by this one day, through family or friends! 

www.hbo.com

We do say ,”Oh that won’t happen, or you won’t be a burden.” But think about it, IS it not a burden when they call or you find out that they hit that same side of the car that has been hit over and over again.  Or you call and ask “What have you been doing?” and they say, “Oh I have not been out of the house for a couple days, I am going crazy.”  That is not a burden?  Is it not a burden to hear the life they may be living is dangerous and unhealthy, but they will do nothing about it or want to make it better.  If they only knew that in order to not be a burden is for them to be happy and healthy and sometimes that is changing where and how they live.  But they become stubborn and I think scared about a lot of things.  

The word “burden” needs to be used correctly.    Call a burden a burden.  We can not continue ignoring the burdens that continue to pile up day after day with our seniors.  It is not right to say to our seniors, “Oh, you won’t be a burden.”  We need to step up and say yes that there will be things that may become a burden if they are not handled now and managed.  Living a dangerous life because of your surroundings or health and not doing anything about it, WILL BECOME A burden!  How do you make the “burdens” in our senior lives extinct, well maybe not all of them, but the ones that you can do something about.  It is a huge task, but maybe by calling a burden a burden will be a beginning and then we will know what we are dealing with.  Honesty and burden go hand in hand, which leads to change.