(Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection - Legal-Ease - Gerald W. Townsend)

Several years ago I ran this article in my Legal-Ease column. Recently, a client told me that he had misplaced the article, which he had kept since it was first published. So, here it is again, well worth revisiting.

I spend my workdays helping people to protect their life’s savings from the financial drain of nursing home care. As I work to rearrange assets, retitle property and change investments so that they can be legally preserved even as Medicaid eligibility is established, it is so easy to forget that the person I am trying to help is a real, living, breathing, human being with the same hopes, feelings and fears we all share.

I was hit in the head with this fact recently when I read a reprint of an article, “It’s Tough to Be Old,” in Aging Matters, the newsletter of Region 1 of the Northwestern Area Agency on Aging in Wheeling. This nearly 35-year-old article was written by Aloyse Hahn and first appeared in the American Journal of Nursing, August 1970. Let me share it with you:

I am 94 years old. Six years ago, my family put me in a nursing home, but I don’t know why. I hear them say, “No one home … everyone works … unsafe to be alone,” but I do not understand.

My life is a moment-to-moment proposition; for me there is no tomorrow. All I want is to die in my own bed at home, not in a world of strangers. I want to hold my daughter’s hand and be surrounded by those people and things I love. And when I can no longer see, or hear, or touch, when my time has come, I want to know that my family will protect me — will lovingly dress my body and lay it to rest.

How can I trust these strangers? What if I should die with no one here? Will they wrap me in that mummy sheet and haul my body onto that steel cart? I’ve seen others die here; I’ve seen the actions and heard the sounds that accompany such a happening. I’m afraid.

My mind slips rapidly, and I know this, but I cannot prevent it. What I remember best are things that happened in the past, only now they seem to be really happening now. “Confused, disoriented,” the nurses say, not knowing the inner workings of my mind. Actually, I’m well aware of most situations, but, with things flashing through my mind the way they do, I’m likely to speak of my school days in the same breath as I talk about the noise of traffic outside my window. I know it’s confusing to others, but I can’t help it. I cry out in desperation, “‘What’s happening to me?” I wish the nurses wouldn’t write me off as “not in touch.”

There’s one nurse who is such a joy — she gently touches me and smiles at me when I look questioningly at her. She tries to explain what is happening and, though I don’t always understand, I feel comforted and safe because I know she means me no harm. Sometimes she puts her arm around me or pats my shoulder just to let me know everything’s all right. She never fails to hold my hand for a few seconds after she puts me to bed, and she always says, “Goodnight, sleep tight”.

Another thing she’s so good about is when I have an accident with my bowels or urine. I get so upset because I don’t always know when I need to go to the bathroom. Sometimes I’m so mortified that I tell the nurses, “it wasn’t me — must have been someone else who soiled my bed.” But the nurse always tells me it’s all right. Someday you’ll be just like me, I want to say to them when I’m feeling bitter. Will you remember then another little old lady a long time ago who said, “How would you like to be me?”

I know that sometimes I’m stubborn. And I know that my very slowness in thinking, pondering, and taking time to be sure before I do anything exasperates others. But I have lived more days and seen and done more things than anyone else around me — that makes my values a little different. Now I need security and understanding and hope. I need respect, too, but most of all I need Love.”

Regardless of age, we are all alike — we all need security and understanding and hope. We need respect, too, but most of all we need Love. May we never become so engrossed in the daily details that we forget these eternal truths.

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Gerald W. Townsend is a partner in the law firm of Fluharty & Townsend, Parkersburg, West Virginia, with special emphasis upon Medicaid planning to protect assets from nursing home costs. He can be reached at jtownsend@fntlawoffices.com.