Our Aging: Contributors, Valuable Resource & Wealth

This past weekend's garage sale and the diversity of the people who came to browse and some to shop was another lesson in acceptance and reminder of how far we have to go as a society.

Diversity. In the United States we write laws. We empower some people with authority to daily work to create these laws through directly exercising our right to vote and through putting people into offices and positions of appointing, managing and directing the course of our lives and the lives of those who will come after us.

Grass Roots. Today, grass roots movements with the vast technological networks can grow from one person's idea to hundreds, thousands and millions of people actively engaged in creating change.

A Beehive. NPR was just talking about bees. How bees communicate in a hive by moving and touching and sending specific communication through movements and through sound.

Humanity. The internet is our vast hive of communication. We move through reaching out and touching people, as this blog has, around the world.

In a keystroke with the choice made by another person to look, to find, to listen, change can happen.

Grass Roots = A Beehive = Humanity's Internet

AGEISM.  Several over 50 (and older) people came to the garage sale. What's concerning is how many find themselves using Garage Sales and therefore depending on those $1, $2 and very low prices to provide a little of life's necessities. Yes, there were the "resellers" but most were trying to augment their limited incomes through either retirement or through low wage jobs.

I listen. I learn. I enjoy visiting with these people even more than I do watching the items gain another home, another family, another chance to be a part of living and not just put away somewhere or forgotten -- given, if you will, "new life".

DIVERSITY.  Two women returned who'd visited the week before and bought a couple of items. The older woman had moved into an Independent living facility. She was in her mid 80's. Her husband, she said, had to live in a separate place because he has Alzheimer's. She was close enough, she said, if they'd let her, she could walk to visit him, but, of course, she can't.

Out of fairness, I know the two facilities, there are two very heavily trafficked roads, no real sidewalks and it's an uphill climb of quite a distance.

WHY TWO SEPARATE FACILTIES?  Why when they're both paying for separate accommodations aren't they at least in one facility so she could "walk" to visit him? Most probably because their budget, what they have available, is too much for Medicaid and too little for many "buy in" places where they could live at the minimal level of Independent living and the higher level of Alzheimer's specialized care.

Perhaps his Alzheimer's doesn't provide a good environment for her to be directly living with him on a constant basis, but, it's obvious she wants to be with him, talk to/with him, and just, for her own benefit, be close enough to be with him when she chooses and not when someone can make arrangements for her.

Perhaps they can't "share" a room for those reasons and that adds dramatically to their costs.

THE SYSTEM OF ELDER "CARE" IN THE UNITED STATES IS OBSOLETE AND FAR BEHIND MANY OTHER COUNTRIES CARE, CONSIDERATION AND VALUE OF THEIR OLDER POPULATIONS.

WHEN?  Will our older generation, those who can no longer manage, care for or for whatever medical or other reasons, be on their own, be considered, be truly assisted and counseled and cared about by our supposed VAST RESOURCES BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE to see the human side of life, of people, of relationships and WORK TO ENSURE SELF DETERMINATION AND SELF RESPECT are honored?

Diversity is age as well as skin color or personal orientation or being male or female.

My oldest son once told me the value of a person is determined by what they've made, the productivity, the money they generated and that can be directly attributed to them.

I sincerely hope he's grown up since then to realize contributions are made on a daily basis by every living thing, human and otherwise. People who are able, people with limitations.

I thought I'd taught him better but I realize his choices do not reflect mine and they do not reflect my success or failure but rather his individual decision.

DIVERSITY.  Our aged and aging are valuable assets. Without them you would not have what you have, Americans and others -- freedom, homes, food, energy, inventions, life itself.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ADVOCATE AND WORK FOR THEIR EQUALITY AND RIGHTS? 

Are you busy living, going through your daily routines and facing the challenges of care and life for our aging population only when it happens to you?  I understand, I did the same.

Although I shared a home for almost four decades and my mother lived with our growing and growing older family members all that time, I admit, my life was involved in so many other things it wasn't until I was directly involved with an immediate family member in the system of healthcare and personal care and other living situations that I became aware of the GROSS LACK OF REAL INFORMATION AND ACTUAL FACTS available.

Speak Up if you have information. Join with others on line. Contribute your experiences. Add your comments here.

MOST IMPORTANT:  Ageism has proven to be a growing industry and provides jobs for people from the Executive Suite to the entry level position.

THE AGED CREATE JOBS, ADD TO THE GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT.

THEY ARE HIGH LEVEL CONTRIBUTORS. We have benefited and we continue to benefit from their lessons and their contributions.

THEY ARE AS IMPORTANT A RESOURCE AS OUR CHILDREN AND OUR CHALLENGED WHO ARE NOT AGED.