The fear of going away before we pass away

Two stories in the news recently paint a vivid picture of what can go wrong as we get older. A few weeks ago a man in Clover, S.C., was discovered to have concealed the bodies of his deceased elderly mother and aunt, presumably so that he could continue to collect their benefits. Each of them had apparently been dead for almost four years. And no one noticed. It was also reported that staff at a North Carolina assisted living facility arranged a “fight club,” encouraging elderly residents in memory care to fight each other while being filmed. Bruising, scratches, missing hair - and no one noticed.

And so it makes me wonder: Could this happen to me? If I were being mistreated in my later years or even if I disappeared, how long would it take for someone to notice? For those of us yet to reach our elder years, the question is hard to answer. Sadly, many of us live as we die - alone. But for most of us, in our current lives we have family, children, and co-workers - if no one else, our lenders would miss us pretty quickly. Our lives and the commensurate entanglements almost guarantee someone and something rely upon us daily. But what happens when we outlive all that, when everything and everyone that once defined our lives are gone?

Some years ago I was watching the evening news with my grandmother Sarah. We saw an unremarkable story about an elderly woman who had been found deceased in her home. A neighbor had asked for a wellness check after not seeing the woman for several weeks. She was thought to have died of natural causes and no foul play was suspected. I noticed that the story upset my grandmother, so much so that I asked if she knew the lady - she didn’t. From my perspective, it was a story about an older person dying of natural causes. Sarah’s eyes saw something much different. She said in a soft voice, “How could someone be dead for weeks and no one even miss them?” And there it was, the thing she and so many elders fear the most: having no purpose, becoming irrelevant, going away before you pass away.

Unlike eastern cultures, there are many disparate stereotypes in America about getting older. On the one hand, getting older is thought of positively, as a privilege full of knowledge and wisdom. On the other, Americans often associate it with things like burdensome, used up and past usefulness. The redundancy of these beliefs, coupled with a loss of purpose, lead to loneliness, irrelevance, or just fading away. It’s something we should all concern ourselves with; advances in life-extending medicine lengthen our lives, potentially beyond our mission and purpose, while a virtual, fast paced, disposable culture threatens to shorten our perceived relevance. Probably not a good combination. And not a small issue, given the pace at which baby boomers are aging out of the workforce, while also living longer.

I’ve always heard that if there are a lot of people at your funeral, you died too early, and if no one comes, you died too late. Up until recently, the choice between a crowded funeral and living a long time was a slam dunk for me. I think I’ve changed my mind. In fact, I’m hoping it’s a choice I’ll never have to make. The recent headlines should be an admonition for us all. We should prepare for an extended life with an extended purpose, in hopes that we don’t go away before we pass away.