January 2017
Dear Louie,

This New Year of 2017 is one of questionable avenues; personal, national, family-wise, neighborhood involved, in all aspects of daily life, and involving past, present, and future. We are to move this spring, not just one neighborhood to another, but from the community of childhood, maturity, family, and the past ninety years of living. To say the move will be big, is a gross understatement; it is a move of calamity proportions; a move of psychological anxiety-producing events.

And why are we moving? The move is precipitated by aging and health events, the probability of needing family help from caregivers living in another area, and the increasing fear of disability and dependance. The problems of so many others, of ex-patients, of relatives, of friends, and of acquaintances - the problem of aging, illness, and dependence. The status of not knowing specifics of a time in life but fearing the eventuality of changes associated with increasing dependance. And this is where we find ourselves. We are changing, we have become near dependent on others for maintenance, for activity, for needs, for most everything; and if not truly dependent associated diseases of aging pose a daily threat of dependence.

In this day and age, contracted health care providers are as scarce as Hens Teeth. The news articles advertise for available in home services, but the truth of the matter, availability of providers is most difficult to procure. There may be advertised caregivers, but in my years of experience the caregivers are not always available, trained, or properly motivated.

There is a great divide between necessity of care and availability of providers. And the modern extended family just really does not function for prolonged care giving to the elderly; altho desire to help might exist, ability to care for the elderly for prolonged time is not readily available. Like so many other equations in life, the equation is likely not to balance.

However, an industry has developed; that of Independent Living, in an extended environment, that of ongoing, changeable care as age promotes increasing dependency. The dependency on others to provide basic care is a bothersome , intrusive balance of necessity, time, and availability. Few families are able to provide necessary time and availability in the care of the elderly. The temporary time of care in an emergency is usually found, but when chronic illness cries for care, devoted care is usually difficult to obtain for extended time. Consequently if one has the means, nursing homes of various types replace family care. This Louis, is where we find ourselves at this state of our lives; we are becoming dependent, have afflictions of the aged, and must seek some form of independent living. We believe we have found such a facility.

The facility we have found furnishes apartment type living quarters, small by comparison to our home of 26 years, but cozy, warm, and attentive; at least until the needs of care are not too great. But since life is of questionable duration when one nears ninety and the other has stepped that threshold search is carried out to find a situation which, at least superficially furnishes a temporary appropriate solution. Hopefully, that is what we have found in the Milwaukee Catholic Home.

The facility is within a mile of each of the three girls, and their mere presence is gratifying when one compares the present distance of thirty-five miles from them to us. I have noted over the years that elderly patients took solace in proximity of their children even if actual physical presence was not always immediately available. And so, Louie, it is with these considerations that we now embark on “downsizing,” “throwaway,” and ”cleaning out.” These activities have commenced.

Tax forms of a generation are thrown onto the “throwaway” pile. Rewards for jobs and projects “well done" and cards with just a name and not with words are piled into the plastic bags of finite possession. Memories and documents await the paper grinders. Clothing not worn for years is bagged, stroked, even smelled, and then discarded.

Casting aside objects used in the past is done with a twitch over the precordium of memory, and a realization that some things do mean something - that a life well-lived is relieved briefly and with emotion of recall.

Yes, this ritual of permanent downsizing is not without emotion.

I plowed through records and papers from my office, papers prepared for teaching during the fifties and sixties, the time of the explosion of knowledge in medicine; the time when even in the rural hospitals time must be made for the younger physicians to teach nurses and aides in the changing environment of the hospital ward. This we did, and as I gazed at the “pages” of notes which I had saved; volumes which represented nights until eleven o’clock preparing for the next day of lecture, nights after a day of work from seven a.m. to six p.m., I wondered where I had found the time, energy, and dedication to “teach” the new arts of medicine, but I guess I did it, and I was pleased to find the age-old evidence of neatly documented thoughts and new knowledge. Louie, I felt good.

And now as I end this note to you, I feel better and am determined to continue to write to you and document this near “end of the trail” venture.

Jim