Manifesting Their Purpose as an Elder

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Reverse Mortgages Helping Seniors Maintain Their Vitality

 Ellie Drake, a physician and the founder of BraveHeartWomen.com suggests older adults “Forget your age, be the sage!” She’s been meeting many women in their 50s, 60s and beyond who tell her they’re about to burst with an idea that is aching to be born through them, and Drake acknowledges the time has never been more ripe: seniors have gained “the experience and life lessons they require for the magnitude of their vision to come through.”

And a reverse mortgage may be precisely the vehicle to support the birth of this later life vision. Our sixties, seventies, even eighties and beyond are no longer a time to “retire and wait to die”; they are years of vibrant possibility.

 

Reverse Mortgage News
It’s not how old you are, but how you are old, that matters most.

For example: suppose a senior would like to age in place, yet lacks the social support that would make this option viable. One innovative solution might be sharing their home with a student or other young adult who can offer companionship, in addition to fulfilling some basic needs such as assistance with grocery shopping, cleaning or gardening. If the home requires modifications in order for the senior to remain there in safety and comfort, a reverse mortgage can help provide an income stream to enable these changes — as well as allow a companion to live there as a friend who helps enrich the senior’s life, rather than just a paying tenant.

Enrichment can also take the form of work or community contributions that add meaning and purpose to later life. While the majority of older people in good health don’t want to return to the workplace on a full time basis, they are often reluctant to give up the social interaction — and many would also like to put a lifetime of experience and knowledge to good use.

With these thoughts in mind, two avid fishermen put their heads and skills together and approached a sporting goods store manager, suggesting he hire the pair for one full time job, which they shared. The store personnel enjoyed having the elders there — and the fishermen already knew about all the equipment and the best fishing spots. Customers loved them, sales rose, and everyone was happy.

Creativity in all its forms is a key component to successful aging. Charlotte, a self-described “shrinking violet,” confronted her social fears following retirement in her mid-sixties and joined a community theatre. By her early seventies she was acting and singing publicly. Robert, 88, a retired government lawyer, tried his hand at photography and wound up producing an international photo series, traveling from Alaska to Tahiti.

Then there is ElderWisdomCircle.org, a virtual “Dear Abby” for the mature years: more than 600 advisors aged 60-105 offers free online guidance to anyone who writes to them.

Whatever a senior’s aspirations and expectations, a reverse mortgage can serve as an essential resource to help them remain as vital as possible, perhaps enabling them to tap an inner wellspring that has been ripening for decades, awaiting its full-blown expression later in life. As noted in a recent blog post on elder wisdom, it’s not how old you are, but how you are old, that matters most.

 

Difficult Decisions

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Reverse Mortgage And Senior Support Services

HECMs can be financial lifesavers for seniors who want to age in place. But what if an individual or couple’s ability to age in place changes over time? Children or other significant relatives who live at a distance would be wise to plan ahead in order to help the elders in question remain independent for as long as practical.

This article on long-distance caregiving explains what family members need to know. Reverse mortgage professionals may want to keep such information handy to share with the children of clients and prospects who are participating in their parents’ HECM process, as well as to use as a handout when addressing groups about how a HECM can help seniors age in place.

Some of the key issues include:

  1. Medication management
  2. Food shopping and meal preparation
  3. Transportation
  4. Household safety and household management

One of the benefits of aging in place is mobility: being able to frequent the places one is accustomed to, such as bookstores, cafés, theatres, etc., whether a senior gets there by car, bus, bicycle or on foot. An increasing number of towns across America offer affordable senior transport such as Paratransit, a flexible shared transportation option that typically uses minibuses to take seniors and people with disabilities where they need to go. There are also transport services specifically for medical appointments.

The greater problem may be not the availability of such services, but persuading older adults — especially men — to use it.

Driving can be a thorny issue for families, as handing over the car keys signals “the end of independence” to many elders. Men who have managed businesses as well as been heads of household may insist they’re fine, even as slowed reaction times and visual or hearing impairments make continuing to drive dangerous — not necessarily because the senior isn’t being cautious, but because they may not be able to respond quickly enough to other drivers’ errors, or to an unexpected event such as a child darting into the street.

This page offers a wealth of information on aging and driving. The gentleman who curated the content reports that when he surrendered his car keys — even though he chose to do so due to failing eyesight — it was “a devastating experience. To live outside the security of a private bubble with a steering wheel put me in alien territory.”

Contrast this perspective with that of an 86-year-old woman who recently moved into a spacious senior apartment that she adores: “Mondays through Fridays, hourly from 9 am to 4 pm I can ride the Macon County Transit with a $25 monthly pass, permitting me to shop for groceries or whatever I need along a fixed route that includes Kmart, Walmart, library and also trips along the way by request. This solves the problem of being without a car. Perhaps the reality is that even should I feel it is something I could afford, at my age — with slowed reactions, hearing deficiencies and readily distracted — I would simply be a road hazard and danger to others.”

Winston Churchill said, “We are shaping the world faster than we can change ourselves, and we are applying to the present the habits of the past.” The more we can flow with the rapidly evolving options for seniors that both a reverse mortgage and senior support services can provide, the greater the opportunity today’s and tomorrow’s elders will enjoy to age in place with purpose, participation and joy.