“I have friends who understand my jokes and I have company at mealtime. I’m a part of the organizing committee for the charity down the street and I get my game of scrabble in every Thursday afternoon.”
Norma walked into the Executive Director’s office for a tour of the Independent Living Residence for people 55 years and older, and being the forthright person she is, announced she was very lonely in her apartment and that she wanted to move in right away. She had to go on a waiting list.
The top reasons people choose retirement living says Maureen Fakaro, General Manager of Verve’s Gilmore Gardens in Richmond, are a health scare or diagnosis, loneliness and isolation, or mobility challenges that make it difficult to take care of the daily activities such as cooking, cleaning, laundry or driving.
And yet, waiting that long can mean you are missing out on living your life to its fullest. When the structure of a career is over, when children are grown and are busy with their own families and careers, many people become restless and lonely. With the structure of their younger years gone, they often need to find other ways to thrive.
Don’t wait until you are ill or frustrated to investigate the retirement residences in your area.
“If you are trying to plan when you are in crisis,” says Shelly Pendlebury, Regional Director of Sales and Marketing at Amica Senior Lifestyles, “that makes the choice very difficult, and people often make the wrong choice. We get calls from a daughter who has only five days to find a place for her mother to live when she is released from hospital after having a fall.”
Start looking when you start having an inkling that things are not going well. It is difficult for a person to put their hand up and vocalize, “I’m lonely” (as not everyone is a Norma!). Loneliness, helplessness and boredom can shorten a person’s lifespan significantly.
Both Fakaro and Pendlebury see people in their retirement residences who, before they moved in, were bored and depressed with no purpose, living on their own (or with a spouse) in their home. Moving into the building with so many others who became their community, these same people found a renewed enjoyment in life. One resident said to Maureen, “I should have moved in here years ago, it’s so much fun!” Like Norma, she wanted to laugh and have conversations with others, to inspire and be inspired by others.
Waiting until you must move is also a problem because downsizing from a home you have lived in for many years is a large task. Make sure you leave enough time to downsize before the completion of your house sale. The work of downsizing, making decisions regarding sentimental objects, prized possessions and things that have been a part of the family for decades is stressful and emotionally draining. Give yourself time to go through this process, even if you decide to hire a professional downsizer.
When thinking about moving into a retirement residence, talk to the people in your life who you trust, who know you and who will enter a heart-to-heart conversation about the decision you are making, advise Fakaro and Pendlebury. Someone who will listen and ask you questions about the details of the place(s) you are looking at. It may be a family member, your best friend, someone in your faith community, your doctor, or financial advisor.
Many residences have waitlists and therefore getting your name on one or three of them early can help ensure that when you are ready to move, there will be a suite available for you.
Allow yourself to be seduced into a tour and a free meal. Chat with the residents you meet. Find out the general atmosphere of the place. Which ones feel like home to you? Delaying your decision about which retirement residence you may want to move into can mean you have missed out on opportunities, your health may decline, or your spouse’s health may decline, and you become ineligible to reside in the place of your choice.
You don’t need to visit all your options in one week. Take a few months to go through your list. Enjoy the process. You can never be too young to start looking. Get your name on the waitlist of the residences you feel at home in. You don’t need to move in the first time they call you with a vacancy.
Marion was depressed. Her husband had been dead five years, her friends had moved out of the neighbourhood and the garden had become too much work. Every time she visited her two best friends in a downtown Victoria retirement residence, she would hear about all the fun they were having. There was a lot of laughter.
It took a few months before Marion finally booked a time to talk to the staff at her friends’ residence. Her two daughters encouraged her to move in for at least a month and see how she liked it. They volunteered to look after her house while she did this.
Joanne and Tony, her friends already living in the residence, were happy she became their neighbour. Each day, they saw a change in Marion. In the end, she made a commitment to stay at the residence and her daughters took on the task of cleaning up her home and putting it on the market.
Marion never looked back.
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Laurie Mueller, M.Ed is retired and living in Victoria with her husband, Helmuth. She recently published The Ultimate Guide on What to Do When Someone You Love Dies, available on Amazon. More about Laurie can be found at www.lauriemconsulting.com or on Facebook.