Waiting For The Grim Reaper

One aspect of the pandemic lockdown has been a reminder of our mortality. We all die - it is merely a matter of when. However when it comes to the later stages of life there are sensitive questions to be asked where it is not at all easy to generalise.

For example, I have absolutely no wish to end up in a care home. Not an uncommon attitude perhaps, but what does it mean? In my case it simply means that the person I am now has no wish to end up in a care home. Unfortunately I may have to change and may not always hold or may be incapable of holding that point of view.

I hold that view now partly because my father had to go into a care home. We had some reliable advice on which home to go for in our area and he was perfectly happy there. Well looked after, comfortable, warm and clean but the dignified family man he once was would not have been at all pleased. Unfortunately when he went into the care home he wasn’t that dignified family man but somebody else. Still cheerful, chatty and pleased to see me, but with few clear memories of the chap he had been. Still less did he have any clear ideas of his earlier outlook on life.

He was there less than a year before he died very suddenly late one evening. I received a call from the home just after we had gone to bed. It was probably the way he would have wished to go, although he would have wanted to die at home - definitely not in a care home. What conclusions do I draw from that though?

Perhaps we are too afraid of death when we bear in mind that it is going to happen anyway whatever our fears and precautions. People and circumstances differ, yet however we try to paint the picture, it is not easy to retain much dignity in a care home. Often there is no better alternative, but dignity doesn’t thrive. That’s also the problem with lockdown.