The Perfect Storm - Challenges without end
Aunt Roz is 95 years young/old. She's mentally sharp, although her patience gives out more quickly than in the past. Physically she's only slightly frail using a cane for balance, sometimes reluctantly pushing a walker. She fights every slight loss of more independence. She struggled against giving up her car, but wisely made the decision at 93 that it was time. She bemoans the independence she lost as a result of no longer driving herself about town.
Today was a bad day, the perfect storm. Roz's Verizon flip phone lost all of her contacts. Not only the important family and long time friends, but all of her increasingly important doctors. After three frustrating hours with customer service the best they could do was locate her info in the cloud, somewhere, but still unable to return the contacts to her phone. Late into the night Roz copied contact info from her handwritten address book into a super compressed smaller phone book she could put into her purse and take with her. Instead of that technological wonder, the cel phone contact list which allows you to summon anyone with a single touch of the screen, she has to find a well lighted area where she can sit down, open her purse, retrieve her personal phone book, find the number, read and dial into her hand held flip phone, and wait for an answering voice. Just another challenge, and Roz is lucky. She has a phone and the where with all to make accommodations
And then there's the blouse she ordered on line, which arrived in a timely manner, but didn't look anything like the picture, and it didn't fit. She tried calling the company. The phone rang and rang, no answer. She checked with information, confirmed the number she had was correct, and redialed. Still no response. Dozens of calls and hours later she was still trying. Roz has returned packages before but there was always a tracking number on the return label. This time, there was none. She feared her return would be lost, she wouldn't get credit for the item, another dent in her dwindling funds. Aunt Roz is resourceful so even amidst rising frustration she tried calling a brick and mortar store, got the corporate number from a clerk, and eventually reached a live person who could, after some discussion, send her a return label with a tracking number, and who also assured her that her credit would be applied. Success. Frustration. Tension. Loss.
It's winter in New York where Aunt Roz lives in an upscale assisted living facility (I wish there were another term for 'facility', sounds so institutional.). Following a small outbreak of a virus the residents, all 200 of them, were put into lock down mode. That means no one leaves their apartment. Meals are delivered, staff are pleasant, but residents are confined to quarters. There's no entertainment in the lounge, no lectures, bingo games, discussion groups. No one to share a meal with, solitary confinement with no end in sight. Day one, two, three becomes days five, six, and seven. Staff remains on salary, but no one outside of the kitchen crew is working, many aren't even showing up. There's no rush to lift the curfew, staff isn't confined. They come and go, mostly go, as they please. Still, the 200 residents, and Aunt Roz, wait for release. They are powerless. If they complain the corporate office could ask them to leave, or find an excuse to raise the rates. They remain silent except for their yearning to be young again; to once again be in control of their own lives.
Is this the "rest of life for which the first was made"? Is this the future?
Aunt Roz is 95 years young/old. She's mentally sharp, although her patience gives out more quickly than in the past. Physically she's only slightly frail using a cane for balance, sometimes reluctantly pushing a walker. She fights every slight loss of more independence. She struggled against giving up her car, but wisely made the decision at 93 that it was time. She bemoans the independence she lost as a result of no longer driving herself about town.
Today was a bad day, the perfect storm. Roz's Verizon flip phone lost all of her contacts. Not only the important family and long time friends, but all of her increasingly important doctors. After three frustrating hours with customer service the best they could do was locate her info in the cloud, somewhere, but still unable to return the contacts to her phone. Late into the night Roz copied contact info from her handwritten address book into a super compressed smaller phone book she could put into her purse and take with her. Instead of that technological wonder, the cel phone contact list which allows you to summon anyone with a single touch of the screen, she has to find a well lighted area where she can sit down, open her purse, retrieve her personal phone book, find the number, read and dial into her hand held flip phone, and wait for an answering voice. Just another challenge, and Roz is lucky. She has a phone and the where with all to make accommodations
And then there's the blouse she ordered on line, which arrived in a timely manner, but didn't look anything like the picture, and it didn't fit. She tried calling the company. The phone rang and rang, no answer. She checked with information, confirmed the number she had was correct, and redialed. Still no response. Dozens of calls and hours later she was still trying. Roz has returned packages before but there was always a tracking number on the return label. This time, there was none. She feared her return would be lost, she wouldn't get credit for the item, another dent in her dwindling funds. Aunt Roz is resourceful so even amidst rising frustration she tried calling a brick and mortar store, got the corporate number from a clerk, and eventually reached a live person who could, after some discussion, send her a return label with a tracking number, and who also assured her that her credit would be applied. Success. Frustration. Tension. Loss.
It's winter in New York where Aunt Roz lives in an upscale assisted living facility (I wish there were another term for 'facility', sounds so institutional.). Following a small outbreak of a virus the residents, all 200 of them, were put into lock down mode. That means no one leaves their apartment. Meals are delivered, staff are pleasant, but residents are confined to quarters. There's no entertainment in the lounge, no lectures, bingo games, discussion groups. No one to share a meal with, solitary confinement with no end in sight. Day one, two, three becomes days five, six, and seven. Staff remains on salary, but no one outside of the kitchen crew is working, many aren't even showing up. There's no rush to lift the curfew, staff isn't confined. They come and go, mostly go, as they please. Still, the 200 residents, and Aunt Roz, wait for release. They are powerless. If they complain the corporate office could ask them to leave, or find an excuse to raise the rates. They remain silent except for their yearning to be young again; to once again be in control of their own lives.
Is this the "rest of life for which the first was made"? Is this the future?
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