Amazing Member Spotlight: Tom Smith

As part of a lifestyle and aging series, we’re working with renowned photographer Terry Lorant to showcase inspirational leaders in the industry. Each month, we’ll feature an inspirational member of the Amazing Care Network community who is using his or her voice to empower others in the collective aging experience — and read, in their own words, what the Amazing Care Network’s efforts mean to them.

Tom Smith: I’m at the age now where I’m thinking about retirement. My children are now becoming young men, so we’re in a new chapter in this family. I’m very mindful of the upcoming chapters in my life and my family’s life and being a responsible parent and thinking about the future and making appropriate plans for all the pieces that touch it.

I think one of the things that the Amazing Care Network does for us is it makes us stop and think about what we need to do. We’re all so busy and caught up in our day to day worlds and responsibilities that it’s very easy to not prioritize our future and to do smart financial planning for ourselves and our family members. It’s really just kind of wake up call.

My mother is 87, and she’s in poor health. I’m very aware that I’m next in line, so I just think about it every day. Every day. And my association with the Amazing Care Network has reminded me to stop and pause and think, how can I best be a responsible parent and make smart choices so that my children will not be inconvenienced by any poor choices or disorganization on my part in my planning for my senior years.

For me personally, it’s all about my kids. I don’t want to be a burden to them and I want to know that in a very smart way I’m planning for my final years and that whatever those plans will be, it will make it a little easier on them. That’s it. That’s the essence of it.

Regarding the care giving issues for my mom, it’s a very complicated, challenging swirl. We lost my dad two years ago, a week and a half before Christmas. Mom’s now 87 and living in her own home. Her memory is going. She needs help walking. I was out there all day yesterday. She’s a proud woman and she doesn’t want anybody in the house with her. And, it’s all of a sudden that it happens. All of a sudden, somebody we love is old and frail. And we’ve seen it happen to other families and other relatives, but all of a sudden it happens. So, it’s difficult. It’s difficult when your siblings do not live nearby, and you’re the one who is close by, and you’re working 60 hours a week, you’re a single parent with 3 kids, you teach 2 nights a week and people think you should be out there with her a lot more. I just can’t do more than what I’m doing. So it is a very difficult situation, this whole journey of ageing…not just for the person who is ageing, but for the family members who are also caring. We’re doing everything we can for my mom, and I think there’s probably a thousand things that we’ve yet to do.

Fortunately, my parents were very smart with their planning, so my mom is one of the lucky ones. She’s in her own home, she has no worries. But she doesn’t want people coming in. She comes from that generation. She’s one of those women who ran her home. No one cleaned her home, nobody fussed for her. She did everything. And she’s still that proud Irish Catholic woman.

I have one brother. He’s a doctor up in Roseville, and it’s just not possible for him to be down here. So I think that for the Amazing Care Network and for other organizations, an important topic is for the siblings to really sit down and talk about these issues before it hits the family, before the bug splats on the windshield. We need to talk about it before then.

My brother is terrific and we get along very well. It hits every family in different kinds of ways. As I was leaving yesterday I said to my mom, ‘I wish I lived closer…I wish you lived closer to me’. It took my son and I almost two hours to get to Orange County yesterday. I physically just can’t go out there so frequently. I can’t miss work, so I’m out there pretty much every weekend.

I think that all of us just need to do the best we can. It’s so easy for other people to say “you should be out there more…you should quit your job, or you should work part time…you should do all these things…you should just go through your retirement account and get that 24 hour care for your mother…” It’s very, very easy for people to have opinions. And I think that these family dynamics and these family situations are intimate and they’re unique and they’re personal to that family. My advice is, number one, take it one day at a time. Number two, it’s not cookie cutter. What my mother needs is different from what the woman needs next door. Every person, every family situation is a little bit unique. But I do think that people need to talk and be open to hearing from other people what’s worked for them.

I remember when my children were little there was a saying “it takes a village to raise a child”…it also takes a village to support an elderly person who we care about. I don’t think that one person can do it all. And in our case, I have a brother who is very compassionate and upbeat and as helpful as he can be. We have the local Catholic Church that comes and gives Mom communion once a week. There is a family across the street we have enlisted to bring hot meals every day, and they will sit and visit with her and help with everything from bringing the trash bins in and out and bringing in the mail and the newspaper and just being those extra helpful hands. It’s been a huge help and blessing. The housekeepers who come in once a week really don’t need to clean the house, but they help her walk with the walker, and they make her a bacon sandwich…they do creature comfort things. I know that all those things sound silly, but I think that when you care about somebody you need to create something that works for them. I happen to have a mother who doesn’t want 24 hour care in the house. Even though she really needs it, I think you really have to respect the person.

When I’m in my late 80s, I’m sure there’s going to be things that I will need. I will also be appreciative if my wishes are respected. There needs to be a balance. It may not be perfect, but there needs to be balance. The person needs to be respected, they need to be safe, and that’s why families need to talk about these things well in advance. Because it happens very quickly. Time goes by very fast and all of a sudden, you have somebody who can’t stand up and get out of a chair anymore. And it just happens…it just happens.

There’s a fine balance between independence and dependence and it evolves. And I think it’s ever changing. Because whatever situation we find ourselves in this week, a month from today it’s going to be very different, whether it’s the memory, whether it’s the physical ability or disability or, those of us, the adult children…we have needs…we’re in the middle…we have children we’re caring for, and grandchildren, and we have and ageing parent and our worlds change too.

Yesterday, one of my mother’s neighbors came over and said, “you really need to be out here more”. And I was really taken aback by it, and I said to him, “Thank you. I work 60 hours a week, I teach 2 nights a week, I’m a single parent, I’ve got children at home. I live 2+ hours away from here. I’m sorry, you really don’t understand my world.” Everyone has their opinion on what other people should do. And unless you’re right in the middle of it, no one can really understand. And I think it’s important not to cast stones and not to make these judgments. It’s bigger than that.

I feel guilty every day that I can’t do more for everybody, but I need to make sure that somehow the kids get their work done, I need make sure that the world of our family is ok. I have people at work who count on me. And I have a mom who is wonderful. My parents gave me everything and I want to be there for them, but we also just have to do the best we can.

Fortunately with my mom, there are visits like yesterday, where she was just completely 100% sharp, and I said to her, ‘Mom, I wish I could be out here more, I wish I could do more for you’ and she said to me “No, no, you need to take care of your family, you need to work, don’t worry about it. You call me every day, 2-3 times…” We do the best we can. I know that I do. There’s just a lot on the plate.

Of course my mom misses my dad and their marriage of 65 years. I think she would be fine being with him. She doesn’t have to articulate that…it’s just little things that are said.

And of course, part of our job at this point…we have to be able to let them go. We have to let them be at peace and let them go for that next journey so that we too can continue and do what we’re meant to do here. With my parents, my dad worked and my mom was one of those at-home PTA active moms, and they were so supportive of my brother and I and he has a wonderful family and I have great kids and we just have to continue on and honor them by doing good work and being good family members. And that’s ok.

When I’m older, I don’t want to be a burden to my children. I want to be independent. I’m an avid volunteer and very active in the community and plan to be for years to come. I don’t want my boys to have to hover or feel obliged that they have to come and see me every week. I want them to have their own lives. I can get somebody in to help clean and prepare a meal and do those sorts of things. I’d rather them be happy. My parents were and are completely that same stock. They’ve never thrown a guilt trip on my brother or me. The neighbors do, but my parents don’t. But you know, in a weird way, when we think of that village that’s involved with caring for our loved ones, we need neighbors and nurses and helpers and somebody from the temple or church to be a part of it. I’d actually really rather that a neighbor complain and yak because in that way I feel that they are listening and they’re aware of the situation, than to not care. It’s difficult for everybody.

I try to think about and plan for anything we can do to help make that time in our lives easier, because it’s not just the 87-year old mom, it’s the daughter and the son-in-law and the grandchildren. There are so many people who are swept into the current and I think we have a responsibility each of us to not allow it to become a burden.

Photos and story by Terry Lorant.