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DEL.ICIO.USIndependent senior not ready for move
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Look at what I got in the mail.”
It’s Wednesday morning. I’ve just settled into Blondine Mosley’s kitchen. She’s got the coffee brewed and the honey buns ready. She hands me an envelope. It contains a flier from an assisted living facility in Loganville. Mosley has been invited to an event as a potential resident.
“They are bugging me,” she muses. “I’ve been bombarded with calls.”
Recently, Mosley made a few inquiries into assisted living facilities, just for information’s sake. No way is she ready to leave her home, give up her independence, though that’s inevitable.
This 83-year-old widow has lived in Snellville all her life. She’s the oldest living member of First Baptist Snellville. She’s a 1944 grad of Snellville High (now South Gwinnett High) and recalls getting married one day, then participating in graduation exercises the next.
For the past 18 years, she’s lived alone in a well-maintained ranch house that sits on an acre. There, she raised a grandson who has cerebral palsy and lives in Athens. Two children are deceased. A daughter died of leukemia; a son died from complications of Lou Gehrig’s disease. The loss of the children left her husband of 46 years too broken to live. He committed suicide.
All but one of her four siblings are dead. An older sister who has Alzheimer’s lives in a nursing home in Decatur. So when it comes to blood kin Mosley pretty much stands alone. She’s worried about where she’ll live out her twilight years, a conundrum that she says most friends her age contemplate.
These are seniors who have slowed down considerably. Their health is fading. They may, or may not, need round-the-clock care. They could use someone to help them get the groceries in, maybe cook a meal, do a little housecleaning.
They’d like to continue living as independents, in the place where memories were made. Their homes. Not a one of them, Mosley told me, wants to give up their homes.
“I have a lot of good friends,” she said, “but they are all getting old. I’m not complaining. Every morning I sit on the side of the bed and thank God for the blessings.”
She suffers from gout and arthritis and wears a catheter. She uses a motorized wheelchair and drives a van with hand controls. When Mosley buys groceries, she has to make about six trips between her kitchen and van. She’s fiercely independent, maybe to a fault. The other day, before the Badie Tour stopped by, she mopped the floor.
“Don’t ask me how I did it,” she said. “It wasn’t easy.”
Mosley has friends who call to check on her, who drop by with an occasional meal, who accompany her on doctor’s appointments. A nurse visits once a month.
And she has options. A friend has suggested that she and Mosley move to an assisted living facility together. A church friend has given her the name of a spryer senior woman who might become Mosley’s housemate. It’s an alternative with appeal.
“My doctor told me I could take my van and go to assisted living and all, but it wouldn’t be home,” she said. “This is not fancy stuff, but it’s my stuff. I don’t want to leave it. I’m just not ready. I dread the day that it will come.”
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Rick Badie
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By Michael H. Smith
March 13, 2008 12:15 PM | Link to this
Your blog brings to fore a developing private sector market of sorts: In-home-senior-care-service, which was previously alluded to in one of my comments, pushing the national service and workfare agendas. Many seniors really do not require an assisted living facility. They could do better with the qualified occasional someone to help them at home; and, as the punch line in this blog sums it up: There really is “no place like home”.
By madelynn martienz
March 13, 2008 12:17 PM | Link to this
this is a good story i i feel bad that young child. I think it would be hard for me to lose every one i love. Way to be tough.
By madelynn martienz
March 13, 2008 12:17 PM | Link to this
this is a good story i i feel bad that young child. I think it would be hard for me to lose every one i love. Way to be tough.
By madison
March 13, 2008 12:18 PM | Link to this
i think that that she should move because there at a senior sitizenz home she would have a bunch of people to communicate with it was a great story to read though
By MySnellvilleBlogDotCom
March 13, 2008 12:56 PM | Link to this
What a wonderful lady! Like a lot of us, she has a hard time letting people help her. It is a blessing for people to be able to help someone else. I would be happy to do her grocery shopping at the same time I do my own. I would also welcome the exercise of taking it in and out of the house!
There are great people who offer services that can help anyone out, but especially seniors. There are several ladies who offer services like house cleaning and running errands and more in a business networking group I am in, WomenOfGwinnett
But I agree with Mr. Smith that there is definitely an untapped business opportunity for someone who could facilitate all these services for a person, giving them one contact to get all their needs met.
By LT5000
March 13, 2008 1:20 PM | Link to this
I personally try to help the elderly lady across the street. Mainly changing some outside lights and stopping a break in.
There is a company out there that does this exact service. They advertise on the Bill Bennett morning show.
http://visitingang.web154.discountasp.net/
LT5000
By Katie
March 14, 2008 6:05 AM | Link to this
Good for her, for remaining independant—for the most part. My grandmother is 100 and lives in her house. My dad and his two brothers have asked her not to go upstairs or walk the steep stairs to the basement, she has had knee replacment surgery. She doesn’t hear very well either. She has lots of wonderful neighbors who look in on her and she has a helper that comes in and does the cleaning and shopping. What she needs most is someone to come and talk to her, even with all the visitors she gets, she is still lonely. I send her weekly letters, which she has read to her but it still doesn’t seem to be enough. I’m proud that she is so independant but I’m sad that she’s so alone.
By coverup
March 14, 2008 8:42 AM | Link to this
You gotta be kidding me. The lead story across the country is this: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4443788&page=1 and there is NO MENTION of it anywhere on ajc.com. What a bunch of liars this publication is.
By LT5000
March 14, 2008 9:31 AM | Link to this
Coverup,
I’ve come to realize that Rick Badie has no interest in real journalism. Unless it can be used to criticize conservatives.
I have asked repeatedly that he cover real issues in Gwinnett County like Illegal Immigration. However, he doesn’t want to take a Ride Along with Gwinnett police and do some real reporting. He would rather have coffee with old ladies, write about human trumpets and occasionally channel Michael Moore.
On those rare occasions he actually ties to write a real story he’s so incompetent that he gets everything wrong. I point out his Michael Moore Sicko column and his Recession column. He doesn’t know what the definition of a recession is or a thing about the real Health Care Statistics in the USA.
LT5000
By coverup
March 14, 2008 9:46 AM | Link to this
The story isn’t the big problem here. The big problem is that this has become a national news story, but our local paper refuses to acknowledge it because they have officially endorsed one of the candidates. The press getting involved in political movements is completely unethical. How can I depend on getting the truth when the people giving me my information have officially signed on as a puppet to one of the parties involved?
By Jeff
March 14, 2008 9:11 PM | Link to this
Coverup and LT5000, can’t either of you read? This is “Rick Badie, My Opinion.” If you don’t like it, then don’t read the column. I read the article because it was an interesting human interest piece. Apparently neither of you have the brains to understand the different sections of a news paper. Most importantly, neither of you apparently have lives. Go preach about “real news” somewhere else. Don’t clog up this blog with your crap.
By Fred
March 15, 2008 2:26 AM | Link to this
Oh THANK you. I thought there for a moment LT you were having an Alzheimer moment when you didn’t stalk and bash Badie. What’sa matter big boy? He STILL won’t cozy up to you and give you the gay love you want?
Is coverup Mark in drag, too ashamed to use his “real” screen name?
Badie doesn’t do the stories you are wanting. Neither does Furman Bishop but I don’t see you stalking him. Just what in the hell is your major malfunction anyways?
I can honestly say that no matter what you bottom feeders think, I could not give a fat rats a* what Obama’s preacher thinks about ANYTHING. It may be a big story to you but it means nothing to me. I don’t care what the guy or gal who cuts Obama’s hair or buffs his nails thinks either. Neither do I care about the decline of Yak dung in the upper Andes.
You two are just plain idiots. Again, I’m laughing AT you not with you. Although I guess I should be ashamed at myself for laughing at two folks who are obviously as mentally challenged as you two are.
Naw, I’m not the least bit politically correct so I don’t feel a damned bit ashamed at laughing at your dumb a sses. You fellers personify every moronic stereo type the idiot leftists portray. I think you sit for Luckovich so has a couple of real life dummies to protray in his mindless cartoons. LOL grab THAT concept. There is know difference between you and Lucho expect for the political party you sell your soul, integrity, and honor for. WHat a bunch of sad, political hacks you people are.
By Fred
March 15, 2008 2:55 AM | Link to this
Wow, there are some serious typos in that last post. Sad thing is that it is more lucid than what you idiot stalkers post regularly……..
By Michael H. Smith
March 15, 2008 11:25 AM | Link to this
Well, Fred, the better part of intelligence is in being able to ignore ignorance. But, seeing as how either, my graduation date is far distant or human flaws yet prevail to overcome me, just so happens as of late, words came down from yon finical heights spoken by none other than the “Oracle of Omaha”, Warren Buffet (you know the world’s richest man according to Forbes), that though technically the definition of recession has not been met, by all consensus in common terms, we are in fact, in a recession. Oh me oh my Warren, Rick and Michael agree on the presence of the “R” word.
Now to matters at hand, back on topic and directly to a point of focus:
These are seniors who have slowed down considerably. Their health is fading. They may, or may not, need round-the-clock care. They could use someone to help them get the groceries in, maybe cook a meal, do a little housecleaning.
They’d like to continue living as independents, in the place where memories were made. Their homes. Not a one of them, Mosley told me, wants to give up their homes.
A couple of thoughts to ponder for those among us who like to see win-win solutions put into use through the means of what we have, to obtain what we have not.
Few would argue that more educational opportunities, especially for the many who can’t afford them, needs be made available in America.
Few, or perhaps even fewer would argue, that as Rick’s blog brings to fore, the role independence plays in the health and well-being of the senior citizen’s life. It gives the elderly person a sense of confidence, of control and of self-worth, while everything else in their lives seems to be slipping away from their grasp. In fact, the mental state of the parson weighs heavily upon their physical health.
Without going into further background info, establishing as one of the areas of “national service”, our young people who “cannot afford higher education” could be employed in service to the elderly “who cannot afford private assisted living facilities” or prefer not to leave their homes and give up their independence. To achieve three goals, possibly more: 1) Provide cost effective in-home-senior-care 2) Provide a modest income and money for higher education to America’s young people 3) Reduce the costs to Social Security and Medicare.
The last GAO report I read quite some time back revealed that seniors were being ill-treated in nursing homes/assisted living facilities paid for by Medicare, while $14 billion of Social Security/Medicare taxpayer money went into other’s pockets through waste, fraud and abuse.
Given what we are spending, for what we are not receiving, it is time to find that proverbial stone that can kill two birds.
By Fred
March 16, 2008 3:24 AM | Link to this
Just damn Mike, that was a long convoluted read. If I got it right then let me respond accordingly, forgive me if i missed a point or two.
A.) The better part of intelligence may be to ignore ignorance, but evil flourishes when good men fail to act. These pieces of dung just stalk this blog and pollute it with their ignorance until the dogs come home. I may be wrong, but I think they are gutless cowards who have had a bully pulpit for their foul trash quite long enough. It is time for GOOP men to speak up and let these pseudo men know what the limits are. I KNOW I’m an a***** and as such I will match their stupid asses word for word. They add nothing to the discussions but trash and have been allowed to do so for far too long. It is quite obvious that they can not debate things in an intelligent matter and that needs to be pointed out quite graphically to them. They are cowardly internet bullies.
B.) I think I disagree on your premises regarding “senior care.” I believe it is a lack of values issue. No elderly member of MY family will die in a nursing home or whatever politically correct term is used nowadays for a nursing home. While both my parents are deader than a hammer, my wife’s parents are both still alive. If it comes to the point where they cannot take care of themselves, we will take care of them. I don’t particularly like either one of them, but it is my “family” responsibility. They took care of my wife when she could not take care of herself and as such if it happens, we will take care of them if they cannot take care of themselves. I WILL NOT tolerate shuffling them off to be someone else’s “burden.” They will be our responsibility.
Now in the case that Rick reported on, that is not an option. Her family is dead. We as a society need to figure out a way to take care of our old. A society that neglects it’s most vulnerable, IE the very young and the very old, does not deserve to exist.
C). There is no such thing as a young person who cannot afford higher education. Every branch of the military uses education benefits as a recruiting tool. It is all in the choices people make.
Although after taking a leak and pondering your statement maybe I see where you are going with that. Instead of being paid to kill someone, youngsters could be paid to help someone. Kind of a peace corp type of thing done in OUR Country. Ok, I’ll buy that. Not a bad idea. I still believe in people helping people on an individual basis, something I seem to see as a “theme” if you will in Rick’s columns. He rarely focuses on the ‘movers and shakers” but instead writes about the folks who just “do the right thing” with no thought of political glory.