Thank you for your thoughts on this, everyone. No one in the family wants him to "change" or do anything at all that he doesn't want to do--we just want to make sure he is really OK.
Awakenedsoul--yes! Those ladies from the bus you describe are just how I hope to be myself---but who knows what fate has in store? I'm really glad we got to know our elderly relative well when he was more communicative.
Well the people I know who are 90-100 years old don't have a lot of energy. Just having a conversation where they have to listen, think and respond is tiring for them. Reading, singing, telling stories they already know, listening to others or the tv are easier than having a conversation. Especially if they are multi tasking by having a cup of tea or eating a piece of cake. It's not that they aren't interested, they just don't have the energy. The ones I know like to have people around them. They watch the people, listen to the people, but it's tiring to talk to the people.
Awakenedsoul--yes! Those ladies from the bus you describe are just how I hope to be myself---but who knows what fate has in store? I'm really glad we got to know our elderly relative well when he was more communicative.[/QUOTE]
My mom doesn't go out of the house much at all. She also can't talk on the phone as long...it drains her. Conversations with people who dominate the exchange exhaust her. I think it's a natural part of aging, or maybe the beginning of the dying process. Many older people have arthritis, also, which is very painful. I'm glad you got to know him when he was more communicative, too.
One of the ladies on the bus told me that "she doesn't have anybody to do anything with..." Her grandchildren live over an hour away, and she doesn't have a car. She said that she gets antsy at home.
Your relative is a lot older than these ladies. I know that I've been shocked so far at the challenges I've experienced as I age...
There were a lot of good points made. Getting older is not for sissies, as someone once said--it's damn hard work. Good for the OP's relative for knowing his limit.
I find other people tiring now, so I'm pretty sure I won't be riding the bus trolling for companionship when I'm in my dotage!
Amen.Originally Posted by Tammy
This older gentleman sounds a lot like my grandfather in his final years. He had always been very active, but after he turned 90, he slowed down. A lot.
I'd go to visit, and he'd just nod off after about half an hour or so. My dad and his brothers rotated spending the night with him (he had two full-time caregivers, but they just wanted to be with their dad). I remember stopping by one Sunday afternoon to find Grandpa, Dad and Uncle John all fast asleep in the living room.
But his mind was still active. He watched TV, he read, he loved to tell his stories. If the great-grandkids came over, he'd perk up for their visit, but be exhausted afterwards.
While depression is something to look in to if you see other signs, he could just be listening to his body telling him what he needs.
A word about depression in the elderly--when my dad was about 75, one of his doctors must have done a depression screening on him, and prescribed a mild anti-depressant, half of one pill per day. The difference was amazing. My dad felt guilty about needing the anti-depressant, but he was much more the dad I remembered while taking it. (And then there was the time he was in the hospital and the staff mis-read the prescription and gave him a whole pill daily. Never encountered someone so happy to be in the hospital in my life.)
Miss Cellane, Your story made me chuckle.
I always become very sentimental when I hear such stories and I'm not sure if I want to become that old. But surely it sharpens my view on life and on how short it actually is and what really counts.
I agree with Jane. The man does not need antidepressants. He's doing just what he wants to do, and how do you know he's not happy watching TV? I can think of two elderly relatives who died, one at 92 and one at 85, and they both had lived extremely full lives, were both as sharp as a tack, and they both just got to the point where watching tv all day was fine with them. It's part of life to simply wind down. And thank God, in your friend's case, he's winding down healthy and alert. Things could be a lot worse.
"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
www.silententry.wordpress.com
When he says he is done, leave him alone IMHO. All your doing is being ato him. Friends are gone, and the body does NOT recouperate like it did when it was younger. Kind of like being handicapped, sharp mind in a screwed up body.
A friends father, was up on his roof at 90+ (think 95 if I remember right) and was so happy when one of his son's friends stopped by. The friend thought that he might have been having issues, but he told him no, he had knocked the hammer off the roof, knocking down some shingles the storm raised up and had a couple of them left, but doubted he would have the energy to go back up the ladder and finish it, if he had to climb down for the hammer.
He was active until the end, two weeks shy of his 100th birthday. Just slow.
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