Open Writing

Luxury retirement homes are springing up all over Toronto. Their seductive ads all promise to make your retirement years a truly golden experience. The idea is that the baby boomers—that huge postwar group of babies—is now getting on in years, and in addition to their numbers, they are perceived to have deep pockets, benefiting from the major growth of the post war years.

My curiosity prompted me to go check out one of those dream places. There was even a free lunch offer with a tour of the premises.

The experience has left me thinking what it means to grow old in a modern city. I have accepted the fact that being poor and old anywhere in the world is not a happy situation. Add illness and isolation to this quandary, and you're really up a creek—no, down a waterfall without a barrel! But having grown up in a small rural village where old people provide a sort of rootedness to a family, I've always felt there was a certain mystique about my elders.

Here I was faced with a community of rich older people. They lived in an exclusive environment, where their every need was anticipated and catered to. Their elegant surroundings came equipped with all the services of the outside world—banking and chapel, beauty salon and library, cinema and gym. Their dining room was graced with fine china and gleaming crystal with attentive staff hovering about. Their personal spaces were lavishly furnished, reeking with comfort and luxury, fully living up to the claim of a dream home.

The residents themselves came down to lunch well-coiffed. The tour guide mentioned that each resident had their appointed place, their regular lunch companions, and a choice of menus. I listened to the quiet hum of voices, filling in the space between the clink of cutlery on china, the cooing voices of the uniformed attendants, as they moved quietly from table to table, responding to the individual needs of their charges. I breathed deeply so I wouldn't start a wild fit of coughing from my corner of the dining room. I wouldn't dare throw a discordant note into this well-ordered scene.

My visit over, I was glad to get away. Clutching my sheaf of brochures, I welcomed the dusty air of the city streets, and the mayhem of traffic and pedestrians. To me, this was real life, whatever age you happened to be.

I took a while to figure out my discomfort with this seemingly perfect place. It was not my lack of sophistication or my limited resources that bothered me. It was the sense of loneliness and finality that I felt pervaded all that polished elegance.

What does it mean to be alive? I've been asking myself this question since that enlightening experience. Does pleasure grow sweeter when we banish pain? Or could we ever banish pain?

How do people in such an exclusive environment engage their deeper emotions? They do not have to be angry at being passed over, or know the anxiety of waiting for a bus that doesn't show up. In the same vein they are unaware of the teeming crowds of humanity that fill our city streets every day—the colorful costumes, the foreign chatter, the exotic smells. Perhaps they had their fill of all this noise, and are happy to leave it behind. They've paid their dues!

On the other hand, every stage of our growth is linked with the past and the future. Families are the bedrock of our being. Children, the headwaters of our life, provide the energy and spontaneity to propel us into adulthood. When we cannot borrow from their joyful innocence, our fullness could be diminished. I wondered what would happen if a toddler burst into that well-ordered room, scattering stuff about in his enthusiasm to hug his 'nana'. Or what the response would be to giggling teen-agers with their i-pods and cell-phones in action, invading the reclusive quiet of their grand-parents' abode.

I have since concluded that I am happy to stay connected to the outside world, to struggle to maintain my independence, to reserve the right to stay in bed as long as I want, to dress as I feel, to wander around the city, and to eat whatever and whenever I choose!

And if I could be useful to someone, so much the better.

© Lytrice Adams

Lytrice writes for Bonzer magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au