Oh, you are all so lovely - thank you ever so much!!
PiePony wrote:
Have you actually asked Eva her thoughts on living with you?
We got to know each other in December and have met about once a week since then, so I am relatively new in her life after she has lived alone for twelve years since her husband died... which is why I don't want to rush things too much.
I have been thinking about the whole idea of her moving in with me since the beginning of January when I talked to her sister (who is ten years younger) and she told me that if Eva can't live alone anymore, she will definitely not take care of her and neither will her daughter. By the end of January I decided that I really mean it and that I am willing to do it all the way through, but only one week ago I started talking about it with Eva. I really wanted to be sure (1) that it's not just an idea of mine but something I can really imagine to do and (2) that it does not come totally out of the blue for her. Now I think we know each other well enough to talk about those things, but I will take it slow.
To answer your question: No, I have not asked her about her thoughts yet. I think that sometimes, if you are presented with a new idea and are asked to give a statement at once, your worries and concerns become manifest in that statement. They somehow are "out there" then, just because you have spoken them out loud and it's much harder to adapt them once you have thought about the whole thing a bit more and your reactions to it have changed. This is why I usually don't say "This is my idea, so what do you think?" but just ask questions about the whole situation (if she wants to go to a nursing home, if she would like her family to take care of her, what experiences she has made or stories she has heard of other people in a similar situation etc.) and then I slowly introduce her to the idea, but never asking for opinions or statements at once.
I do see the change in her emotional reaction though, although we have only talked about it twice. The first time she said I was crazy and not from this world, she would kill herself so that she does not ruin my life, she told me how everyone in her family just gave the old people to a nursing home and how this is already planned for the next two generations… all arguments along the lines of “this is just not possibleâ€. Then a bit later but still within the same conversation, she started talking about possibilities. That you can get money for home care and things like that. And she produced those test-like questions and arguments, those that you only use to make sure the other one really means it. The next day her statements about killing herself had changed into questions about possibilities if the situation should ever come.
I will ask her about her thoughts in time, but not yet. I will wait until she got used to the idea so that her evaluations won’t reflect something like a “first shock.â€
I know it will be hard for her to deal with the worries about ruining my life, but this is a perception we can work on. And when I see her eyes shining when I tell her that I promise her that she will never have to go to a nursing home unless she wants to, I know that it is the right thing to do.
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Will your council or government offer help towards nursing care or some assistance towards clothing, heating and food to ensure that you are not risking hardship if you stop working?
Yes, there are possibilities and I have collected some info about that but don’t want to make fixed plans until the whole situation is a bit clearer.
Quote:
Do your children agree?
As they are only my neighbour children, I don’t feel that I have to ask them.
But yes, they do agree and look forward to meeting Eva very much.
Thanks again to all of you, your support means so much to me!
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because of my job I am constantly talking to our residents and thinking about this subject... I would love to once open a retirement home where people could come and live in a small group with a place they can sit together but also small corners where you could be alone and a garden to just sit and think, that is accesible for wheelchairs, I would love to give them joga or some thai chi and make dinner together, and try to eat healthy and according to their needs with loads of herbs and there would need to be projects like care for animals and for the garden... but that is just a dream... maybe one day it could come true...
