In 2009, I flew from New York to California to spend Mother’s Day with my mom. I was busy with a senior move management business at the time. I had learned from my senior clients that aging in place was often their first choice, not the move to assisted living for which they had hired me. So, with my mom’s low vision issues, a bit of vertigo but generally in good health, I knew that I should pay closer attention to her and her house on this trip.
Her master shower was about 3’ by 3’ (or at least, it felt that way) and did not have grab bars. I made a mental note and then, as vacations go, the time slipped away. I didn’t get that far from California, actually on the flight home, when I began to feel the guilt for not taking the action and getting grab bars installed. I could have had a professional or my brother, the contractor, do the work or I could have made the call and the appointment, at least.
Now, it’s July and I am back in California with mom. This trip I arranged for the grab bars to go into her shower. She was actually grateful and I was relieved. It was a small thing but I knew at the time, years before I was doing this as a professional, that it was the right thing and Mom would never have asked!
I offer this story as a reminder that when we take the action, it saves the angst and guilt and can save a fall, too!
By Fritzi Gros-Daillion, Director of Education for Age Safe America, LLC