Lyrics: IMAGINE no possessions/ I wonder if you can/ No need for greed or hunger/ A brotherhood of man/ Imagine all the people/ Sharing all the world
My investigation into living options for elders continues to open up a plethora of possibilities. Most recently I’ve been learning about the Village-to-Village model of aging in place in your own home with support of the community. I met with Pat Lewis, a dynamic leader in her neighborhood and co-founder of Wider Horizons, a virtual village for elders in Central Seattle. I watched a Brian Williams news feature on the virtual village where his in-laws live in Connecticut. And I viewed the video on the national Village-to-Village website, http://www.vtvnetwork.org. I had a phone conversation with Denise Klein who is serving as paid director of services for the villagers of Wider Horizons. I learned that there are three women currently pursuing the idea of starting a virtual village in my district of Seattle and readily gave permission to be contacted. I feel such energy contained in this concept. It energizes me.
Staying in my home is what I want to do. It’s what most elders want to do. For now I can do the housekeeping chores, take out the garbage, get up and down the stairs, and even mow the lawn although there’s a lovely neighborhood leprechaun who magically appears when the grass needs a haircut. I can hire out big jobs. Right now it’s replacing a fence. I miss my partner, the Rose Man, who took the lead on financial decisions of that nature. I’m grateful to my sons who took the old fence down and prepared the site for the new. But, what happens if I should take a fall and break something? Or need a ride when I have the cataract removed from my other eye and am under the effects of sedation? My kids can’t leave their jobs to run me around. But a village can. And right now, I can even be that villager for others.
Another thing I can do is vote for the city council candidate that speaks to the needs of elder residents. Last week I attended a candidate’s forum and only one candidate out of six spoke to the needs of the district’s elders as well as the value they are to the community.
But wait, there’s more. There’s the Eden Alternative to nursing homes. And there’s Adult Family Homes. As elders we have, and I’ll use that word again, a plethora of options to choose from. Our world can be as unlimited as our imagination.
Lyrics: You may say I’m a dreamer/ But I’m not the only one/ I hope someday you’ll join us/ And the world will live as one. (Imagine by John Winston Lennon)
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