Anonymous wrote:Just don’t die alone in nyc. I heard they ship all the unclaimed people off to an island and have inmates bury you. Very sad

What do you expect other states to do?

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully a niece or nephew. They are very vulnerable to abuse. People on DCUM think having money will protect them as they age, but they just don’t realize how vulnerable you can be when you you are elderly. This story haunts me, and the couple even had a daughter looking after them, and they were still abused. They’d never have been found if it weren’t for her.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights

Does the person who posted this know which states and jurisdictions are the worst? Or how to find out? ...

My childless aunt is in her 80s and does just fine on her own. She's a snowbird who still travels by car from her home on the East coast to FL every fall and then back home in April. She usually travels with her friend who is also a widower.

She even left early FL before COVID-19 got terrible down there, slept in her car to avoid a hotel, and made the trip in 2 days instead of the normal 3 days of spaced out leisure travel.

She's still mentally very sharp and pretty healthy for being in her 80s. My family and I visit her a few times each year but she has zero interest in leaving her home and living with us or any other family members.

In FL, she lives in a gated community for 65+ people. They are one level SF homes, not like a residential unit situation. There's an urgent care within the gated community that's open until midnight, I think (can't remember). There's also a cafe there that's only for residents and a large community center that hosts different events each day. Everyone just drives their golf carts around the neighborhood and they can take the community bus out to grocery stores and other stores. They also do big greyhound type bus trips for residents to other places like Disney, Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans, etc.

When she's in PA, she also lives in a gated community that's for 55+. Her place there is an attached condo. Again, all one level but very spacious. Many of the same amenities but no urgent care onsite. They do have their own church onsite, though.

I spent many hours volunteering at a nursing home. Most of the residents were women and most had children.

Some had regular visitors and others none at all, including the ones with family members.

There was one woman who stood out for me and I spent lots of time talking to her. She was 108 years old and completely blind but otherwise fine. She did not have children. She loved to talk about the "old days" and what life was like when she was a child. She had a great sense of humor and seemed to have adjusted to her life in the home.

People think they will just commit suicide but it's not always that cut and dry. Maybe your vision starts to go a little bit, or your mobility, or your mind. You wait for tests and hope for good results. Before you know it you are weak and frail, but still have hope.

Or maybe it comes on quickly. You are perfectly fine and then WHAM - a stroke hits you. Then you wake up in a hospital and cannot move an entire side of your body. But you hope that you can get better with physical therapy. Maybe you will, maybe you won't.

Here's what I know: We are together in our journey of life, and yet we are also alone. Many of us will die alone and must come to peace with that.

In my family, we look after our childless elderly. My aunt helped a childless cousin (cousin of her husband). He was in a nursing home, but she visited very regularly (several times a week), managed some of his affairs, etc. My sister managed all the affairs of a childless uncle. He had home care aides, but she over saw that as well as his business affairs, etc. My aunt was local to the cousin (in fact I think she encouraged him to move near her as he started getting unable to care for himself). My sister was not local, but went to visit several times per year and was able to oversee a lot from far away (with the help of some local friends). I think both my aunt and my sister had great affection for the older person and found the caretaking relationship rewarding. My sister is an attorney and my aunt was a piano teacher (she is dead now).

And I thought the COVID and the racism threads were depressing...

They become homeless.

I'm in the throes of caring for my mother now, and I will never do this to my own child.

As PPs have said, the trouble with ending it all is that you will have to have the courage to go before you are ready to go, otherwise it will be too late.

(I will have to find the courage to go before I am ready to go, too.)

Anonymous wrote:Just don’t die alone in nyc. I heard they ship all the unclaimed people off to an island and have inmates bury you. Very sad

Potters Field. There was a piece about it once in the New Yorker

Anonymous wrote:I'm the PP with the mom with pneumonia. All of you are assuming there's a clear moment when you're faced with a life change, like moving to a facility or activating some plan or insurance. There often isn't. One moment, that day seems far off; the next moment, you don't have your wits.

that's what I figured
I do have one child
I already said when the time comes to not hesitate to put me in a home - even if it's the state funded kind
I know it will seriously shorten my life but lingering in a nursing home could seriously shorten my child's life by him having to take care of me and worry.
I don't wan that for my child
If I die in a home, it will seem like the natural course of events even if it's earlier than I would have liked

Just don’t die alone in nyc. I heard they ship all the unclaimed people off to an island and have inmates bury you. Very sad

I'm the PP with the mom with pneumonia. All of you are assuming there's a clear moment when you're faced with a life change, like moving to a facility or activating some plan or insurance. There often isn't. One moment, that day seems far off; the next moment, you don't have your wits.

I had a childless aunt and my mom cared for her along with her own mother (they lived together after my grandfather died).

Anonymous wrote:I plan to kill myself when I start going downhill. I don't want to live like that. I've felt this way since I was a teenager, and I'm 43 now. My stance has never wavered. Suicide or assisted suicide. I'm not going to have someone wiping my ass or doing my thinking for me.

I'm not as blunt as you, but I can't stand the thought of someone else wiping my butt. My grandpa was a strong man but when he couldn't get up to pee and poop and started peeing in the handheld urinal (held by his daughter in law), he let himself go downhill fast. He said goodbye to everyone and then refused to eat again.

Research the best local bridges for jumping off of. Or rent a magnificent yacht for the last couple years and stay in it until the last days, then jump off? I dunno, that's my plan.