AGING | HAVING FUN IN LATER LIFE
Growing Old Gracefully or Not Is A Choice
Which one would you opt for?
I was out for my daily evening walk; it was about 5:00 PM on a midweek day when I came across an elderly lady.
She seemed out of sorts and was holding herself up by hanging onto an outside trash receptacle, the only one in sight.
I asked if she was okay, even though I could clearly see she wasn’t.
She said, “No, love I’m not, I’m trying to get home but I can’t.”
I asked where she lived, and she explained that she lived in the retirement home at the end of the road.
I had seen the retirement home often on my walks and wondered whether one day, I would end up living somewhere like that, and what life is like there.
I offered to help the woman back home, thinking maybe she had Dementia or Alzheimer’s and whether she really lived at the retirement home.
As we walked, she began to explain. She was in her 80s and had just gone to the pub as she usually did. She had enjoyed a glass of wine or two or maybe more. She was a bit vague about the numbers.
When she got up to return home, she felt worse for wear and would not have been able to safely walk…
