One of the things that a lot of people don't get around to
doing as they get into old age is to make plans for how they are going to spend
the last stage of their lives. All too often, they just drift along, year after
year, until one day they reach the point where they can no longer cope with the
tasks of daily life and someone else has to step in and make decisions for
them—frequently, decisions with which they are not at all happy.
In all the years I spent working in community health, I saw
this pattern over and over again. Families, social workers, community health
nurses, all faced with the dilemma of what to do with an elderly person who was
no longer able to live comfortably—or even safely—in his or her own home and
yet was stubbornly resisting the need to move somewhere else. And in so many
cases, the solution that was eventually found was really not a happy one, from
anyone's point of view. Very few of us really want to end our lives in a
nursing home.
The time to plan and made decisions and come up with the
sort of solutions that we are sure we shall be happy with is now, while we are
still able and flexible and creative enough to think it through.
Furthermore, it is now a well-established fact that
loneliness and isolation shorten lives. Like so many other species, from
sparrows to wolves to elephants, we humans need a tribe. We need community. We
need others around us. Yet, being modern humans with a well-developed sense of
self, we also need some space and solitude, especially the introverts among us. Cohousing is the perfect solution. and since an elder cohousing community - unlike an ordinary retirement community - is designed by the people who are going to live in it, we know we shall end up living with compatible and like-minded people.
So a few years ago, Sky and I came across the concept of
eco-cohousing for elders, we knew this was the solution we wanted for
ourselves. Not only is elder eco-cohousing a sensible, creative solution for
how to live happily and creatively to the end of our days but, being community
based, it is also eminently sustainable and ideal for our 21st
Century. Pioneered in Denmark and rapidly gaining popularity in the USA and
elsewhere, cohousing communities for elders provide not only the ideal blend of
privacy and togetherness that intergenerational ones do but are also specially
adapted to the specific needs of older people in ways that range from
accessible structures to shared in-house care.
We are now part of a group that is planning our own elder
eco-cohousing community in the county where we live. Right now, we are still in
the early stages. I shall be setting up a separate blog, at some point, to give
details and updates about all this. And I shall be announcing that here when it
is ready. So watch this space…
