caring careers here.com providing connections to the lives of Aging motans by helping people discover careers in caregiving more information at caring carear here.com you cannot deny that you're getting older that that just doesn't work when we both start getting sick they thought we need help you need more help than you're getting if you get to a crisis mode you don't have choice but if you have Choice you're not in a crisis this place is going from fun to burden what do we really need and what don't we need hi I'm Melissa Fritz host of inside senior living as a senior living consultant during the covid pandemic and a daughter who lost her father to alzheimer's dementia my inspiration for this work comes from a deeply personal place I've seen firsthand the challenges family face when navigating the complexities of Aging over the years I've dedicated myself to equipping older adults and their families with the information and resources they need to make the best decisions whether that means receiving care in their own home or making a move to a senior living community and as we all age this need is is only going to grow that's why we're on a mission to spark conversations support caregivers provide valuable resources and promote a more age-friendly world today we're meeting Jerry and Darlene a couple who've been married for over 60 years together they've built a life full of love family and memories but now with both facing health challenges they've made the difficult decision to downsize it's a moment many of us will face and their story is one of confronting those changes headon with understanding and Care well I had wonderful parents I mean that can't beat them everybody wanted my mother to be their mother and my dad the same way so I was pretty blessed that way I had a very interesting childhood it was a lot of fun I've got more stories than you got tape here and uh I would uh only say this that I grew up with a variety of relatives all around me that all L me and they all saw me a little bit different and they all encouraged that difference uh so I had a lot of self-esteem selfworth my mother and dad had a Tavern in hugle and I would come out there uh on weekends so I peaked out the door and he was coming in and he asked my mother who's that yeah that was uh that was the day uh I hid gold here's this goodlooking girl at the end of the bar I came in the other end and uh somebody hollered out J give us a tune so I pounded out a couple of tunes on the piano for everybody and and later I asked her mother I said be who was that she say that my daughter really I says you'll have to introduce me sometime she says oh well okay well she okay and I thought well maybe she doesn't want her daughter known a piano player you know they've got some reputation so anyway uh that that's how we met but he asked me to go out with him and I said no that thank you anyway walked in the back well he didn't know I had two boys at the time and I was I was pregnant true then yeah and I was pregnant so I wasn't really interested in him I had been divorced and a lot of hurts and um so he told my mom that he was interested and and she told him the story he says he got a contract to go to trucking down to Texas so while I'm having this baby he he came back and first thing he did is hold the baby and the the day we were married he uh adopted all three of them first 5 years of our marriage I looked at my log books and added it added it up just the overnights I was gone uh about a year and a half so that was a little hard to take but we made it had all these kids to take care of you know she's been so supportive to me in all of the I I've I've been involved in so much and I was gone a lot when we were flying but she was always there for for me uh I knew she was there in spirit when I was gone and I knew she was there to encourage me in any way she could and the good days and the bad days when he uh retired when we thought okay now we're old we'll go to Florida we couldn't stay there it was missing the kids too much so we have five kids and we have uh 16 grandchildren and 33 great grandchildren so it's fun and they all live around they all live in Minnesota so we were close and we get together a lot we did a lot of entertaining at every house we've had but especially this one because we have the pond and we can swim in it and we so we'd have we even had a wedding in our backyard and that was fun the tent and everything and um what else have we done here well in the lake place we were over on the big lake at forest lake lake number one on the North side and uh that was always a party like every week we ran it was more of a resort than it was home uh but we enjoyed it we uh left our door open and uh a lot of people they were just kind of getting started that were our age and they had a lot of a lot of family and not a lot of money so coming to the lake was a was a treat and the kids enjoyed it they had a great weekend and but it was really tough on Darlene my my my the cooking she did well I didn't mind though then I don't want to cook now she's always saying I'm so proud of you girls and yeah I don't think she knows how proud We Are of her and proud to be her daughters she has no clue and some of that might come from you know she was always a a stay-at-home mom you know didn't work she worked hard she worked long hours she still does you know that's that is one thing you know she in the last several years it's been I don't want to cook anymore and I was like light bulb moment of everybody else gets to retire she has been a homemaker her entire life for umen kids grandkids great grandkids my dad it's time for her to retire yeah she loves people deeply in that when you're in her presence especially in her home you go away knowing that you were loved and if there's anything that I hope that I gain from her it's that they've helped a lot of people Mom and Dad they've helped over the years a ton of people wow so many people have come through their doors and they just help them take them in and we're not talking like come in for dinner we're talking like stay a month stay five months Be Our Guest how do we help you even when you're not in our home then that's who they are yeah oh wow so you did you make these for all of your grandkids yes well all the all the girls boys didn't want them the boys didn't want all the bling huh this is a fabulous space it is it kind of your therapy I can just do my thing go out the door shut the door and nobody knows the escape to your place right what a joy to have your grandkids and your great grandkids around and to be able to have something tangible mhm to share with them and they'll never forget it this is what you get for a cockpit after 35 years of flying uh you bring home the memories and these little models and uh you sit back and you as you look at each one of those you remember many incidents that took place as you go through the flow yeah these here were early military airplanes that I was really impressed with was a young boy when it came to a point where something really changes in your life first one that airplane right there was the first jet that I actually had to fly so in a 16-year period these airplanes I flew uh the head person for the company the chairman of the board of the company that I was working for but I was with them for 35 years allowing them the time to share the memory can really Aid them in letting go so okay okayy tell me about tell me about your 19th airplane In Your Den dad I want to know about that airplane well okay so now that I've heard the story he's passed on the story now he can pass on that airplane and he can keep you know a few that are really really special to him I signed up with the Minnesota Army National Guard in 1955 and uh I was was still in high school it was four uh well about 3 and 1/2 years that I was in that particular guard I was already at the airport and doing some flying and everything else and the Army Air called me in so I stayed with that until uh the outfit I was with went to Vietnam because I had four children by that time I couldn't they couldn't send me in theater so anyway uh I let the clock run out I had eight years in and uh that was the end of that but I'm still very supportive I I still have a lot of military in me but I'm a chaplain with the uh with the American Legion and that gives me a lot of opportunity to especially the guys coming I'm getting a lot of guys that came back out of Nom they're pretty beat up and uh you know it isn't just the guys with holes in them sometimes it's in it's between the ears that's a worse wound than than a hole in your leg they find camaraderie with each other this is where the service clubs come in yeah the importance of community for veterans is is huge um you know in our Suicide Prevention efforts I think that's one of the biggest pieces that we've looked at is that isolation people get isolated um they get caught up in their own thoughts and memories and uh there's a a creative or or social way to deal with those things and talk to other veterans and reach out um and then there's the you know sitting in a dark room alone in the Minnesota winter and that's uh not usually the the best way to handle things well Jerry deals with ongoing heart issues Darlene is beginning to experience early signs of memory loss their daughters both work in senior care and have come to realize they need to have a conversation with their parents about their concerns and what the future may hold getting older and and physical decline has been hard on him he is a hard worker like outside you know cutting down trees hauling them away cleaning up the shore line moving rocks it was constant he just constantly moves he he even even now he sits and you will see his hands moving you will see his feet going he's drumming he's playing the piano on his lap music's always been in his life big time too yeah he just doesn't sit still so this physical Decline and and lower energy because of heart issues has really been a difficult process for him both of our girls work with senior citizen things and they've seen a lot and heard a lot you know and uh when we both start getting sick they thought we need help you need more help than you're getting so at first it was uh no we don't we'll get over this like a flu or something you know started out in an Ebenezer Community um where I was the assistant to the Ed and also receptionist just got my feet wet and like got bit by the bug that's what we call it in the industry you get bit by the bug because these seniors are adorable they have their own stories it was just it it was me and then my sister came into it she said you'd be great in sales in in my industry in what I do and I'm like me huh sales e no um but here I am um so I I did you know obviously I did enter the industry and as she said I got bit by the bug so here we are telling others how to find solutions for these families and yet we waffled we we knew what to do and yet yeah oh we called it Kick the Can well said we would call each other like and be like guess what happened today today and I just oh my gosh and she'd be like do you think we should talk to Mom and Dad about maybe assisted living like no not yet how about if you do it we'd kept doing that too well you do it no you do it no we have to do it yeah we have to be we have to be together us and our brother and and we did yeah yeah we talked with our brother Mark and um we said let's have Mom and Dad over here and have like a brunch and just bring it up casually and ask them what their thoughts are in moving and what their thoughts are in um how they're going to approach the next portion of their life because we had see been seeing some things with mom in her health and we wanted to make sure that they were ahead of the curveball with that so we kind of used that as the premise yeah well and you know our father has had some serious heart complications over the course of the last you know five five to seven years and we're looking at it as what happens if something happens to him what Mom can't live in this big house with this big yard and the Beautiful Pond and all the things mom doesn't even pump her own gas no she can't you know so then it'll be on us and then then we're in crisis mode and you know with everybody that I work with my sales teams if you get to a crisis mode you don't have choice but if you have Choice you're not in a crisis so we needed to do something proactive with them and it ended up being a a beautiful brunch and a very organic conversation that we were able to have and I think that before we did this um you know we were talking we were texting with our brother of okay back to basics of what we know from our industry how do we approach this m we approach it with how do you feel about the future what what's scaring you about the next few years and what's important to you what's important how would you feel about you know all of these things and that conversation just started to evolve and the things that they started to admit and and the realizations that you know you could kind of see maybe the light bulb go on a little bit it was so relieving emotionally to have opened that door because then we can talk about it any time mhm of its time it may not be time today but it's time for us to start taking the next steps you cannot deny that you're getting older that that just doesn't work and people who try to do that uh they're really hurting themselves in the future it's going to come back to bite them so you have to go with your age your ability opportunities and uh to change your thinking on things but that only comes by information if you don't go out and ask questions discern things what somebody else has been doing and it works for them may not work for you we uh based on geography do you want to be near your family or do you want Sunshine every day you know you you you go move away and think that's going to be great you'll spend your life on the airplanes coming home blowing out birthday candles and so the uh the answer really is you plan early be thankful for the things of the past and be smart enough to know you let go of some of these things Jerry and Darlene are beginning the process of downsizing a huge and emotional step for any family while it's not easy to leave the home they've built so many memories in it's a decision needed to ensure their future care and safety it's good to see you guys again yeah good to be back so why don't you fill me in on how is the downsizing going that's the last time I talk to you a lot of work yeah hard to imagine how much junk you accumulate over the years you don't need it any there's not enough cardboard boxes and for slake to haul it all at once so uh no it's it's going all right and uh uh we've got a plan we're working the plan and uh uh you got to start early and you're going to finish late don't let it bug don't let it bug you just just get it done sounds like some words of wisdom there some days you just put it in park and you enjoy the day he forget it you know it won't go anywhere yeah that's really good advice I the same thing I've been very busy hauling out stuff from different cupboards and clothes and pictures and didn't know I had so much what about the emotional part of it I mean like are you having to get rid of things that you have emotional ties to or you giving them to your children or well they don't want anything you know we're all old too and we have our own junk so I think the things that are that are really um special for the family those are the things that yes we will keep in the family line but like we're encouraging mom and dad to actually put things in boxes that they know that they can't live without and they want to have here so that's really helping and I won't let it ruin my day I'll tell you that if I want to stop and play the piano hold it train ain't moving it's a good one you don't mind once you're there you know you have to downsize you can't take everything with so we're just thinking that way you know what do we really need and what don't we need it's important that you don't go in looking at what you would be comfortable with with right the new shiny and the granite and this oh The Workout Studio oh you you have to go in with lenses on that are where would they be happy where would their needs be met where would they Thrive and have socialization it's not about the surfaces it's below the surface I remember saying to Mom how do you feel in here Mom how does it feel in here oh I like it this feels good yeah it's so pretty so it's so big yeah there's so much to do uh-huh we know yes now this is the two bedroom two bath that you saw earlier do you remember it from before okay yeah so this is this is the smaller one of the two wow but it's still it has a different layout than the the larger one but you can kind of see it's got the open floor plan you know for the most part I think that the community that we chose like just about everyone else on the planet who's choosing you know Senior Living it's location for us it is um it's so centrally located in our town um for all of us to get to very quick that we can swing in we can say hi we can stay 20 minutes or a half hour we don't have to drive and make it a thing on our calendar so we have got to the place now where we're using an estate sale company they're going to come in and they're going to actually price everything they're going to have a date they're going to have the estate sale um and so what we're doing with Mom and Dad is we're like what is it that you can't live without what do you want to bring to the apartment um you don't need all of this so out of the or what do you want new mhm do you want a new lifestyle let's do it yeah now's our chance right Darlene we did it you did it you did it I cannot believe it's a big room is all of that fabric you had I didn't know it was a big room right tell me how how did it go it went really well my girls helped me y thank God they were around because Mom you don't need it uh I guess I don't okay I sold everything but my machines nice and I gave one to my granddaughter mhm okay how about Jerry oh he he was naughty he couldn't get rid of anything really all that you know all the airplanes that that were in them he he had a story about every one of them and they had a listen for 20 minutes of they're so e stop take finally I said to him Jerry I got rid of my stuff yeah now it's your turn I can sell a house like that because I can replace it with what I need for the next phase of my life and that's what led me and Darlene to start saying okay this place is going from fun to burden and uh you can't depend on your family they have their own so you start hiring if you can find anybody to come in and do all of these things when you suddenly realize how much time you've spent on it so with all of that I say this go and see what they've got to offer you can take a lot of what you enjoyed in the past bring it those appetites into that community and you will find that you're not as old as you think you were the love between Jerry and Darlene continues to guide them as they travel through this next stage of Life their story reminds us that no matter what life brings the strength of a relationship and the support of family can help us navigate even the toughest transitions she taught me to see me for what I was and what I could do for other people rather than I could do for Jerry and that was life-changing for me and that's what I was attracted to and it was like a magnet and it's stuck isn't he sweet careful I don't think we ever had a time where I can't take this anymore we've never had that have you no that's a lot lot of years isn't it yeah no I wouldn't have wanted anybody else he came for me he rescued me today we witness Jerry and Darlene's decision to let go of the past in order to embrace their future we see them downsize and make a move to a senior living community where they're free from Home Maintenance and able to enjoy the things they love next week we'll meet Maria a Latino immigrant who balances the responsibility of caring for her aging parents in her home and a full-time career it's a powerful story of family culture and Community join us as we explore how Maria's dedication shapes her family's [Music] future production of inside Senior Living is made possible by Elder Mark Senior Living software helmouth and Johnson Lotus Pharmacy and kickernick gallery [Music]