You have hit upon something that has bothered me for years. My mother's last birthday party was attended by some of the home visiting hospice people. They did a wonderful job of making her physically comfortable, but there was a part of it that was completely embarrassing for her. Her 86th birthday was somewhat clouded by the fact that she knew she was dying, her mind was sharp up to the end which came less than a month later. She had a slow process of dying from Pulmonary Fibrosis. My upset and hers what that she was basically forced to put on a stupid party hat that was painfully obvious was something she didn't want to do. She was always a very vain person when it came to her appearance.
After the hospice people left she grabbed the hat and threw it across the room saying get rid of that stupid thing. She was weak from the illness, had lost her ability to be independent, her good looks had faded away and she was upset about that and then, even though the intention was not to humiliate, managed to do just that. To take away her final amount of dignity that she had left. She had even, in spite of the difficulty, manage to get dressed nicely and get herself to her chair in the living room with her oxygen tubing trailing along behind her. Hell, she even insisted on having a hairdresser come in and do her hair and darken the gray roots the day before she died. I felt her pain but could do nothing about it at the time. I did, however, tell my children that if they ever allowed that to happen to me, I would haunt them forever. Well not everything, I hardly have any roots left much less gray ones.
That is something that I see happen way to often when it comes to aging people. The well intentioned people trying to force the elderly to be young when they are sick and are facing the end. That last thing they need is a festive party hat. What they deserve is dignity and warmth. That also hit me back when I owned my Residential Care Home. I saw the awful reality of how people died. To think about how someone lived their life, many experiencing many important and useful things, that died while on a toilet with their pants around their ankles. It is a mind boggling injustice in my mind, but nonetheless a common thing. So while someone is alive, please treat them with the dignity that they earned in their lives and not make it a circus in an attempt to tell terminal people that it is a happy time. It's not happy for anyone that cares about them and it certainly isn't a joyous time for those that know the end is near and are many times helpless in expressing the pride they once had in life.
Sorry to be a Debbie Downer here this morning, but believe me it is a scary thing to get older especially when you start to lose physical abilities that once were just second nature. It doesn't have to be a sullen time, but just one that allows them to still hold their heads up high and leave with a sense of accomplishment and dignity. Again, sorry! I just had an overwhelming need to express that.
Disclaimer: There may be some of the elderly that would be ok with that, however it is important to know what each individual person finds appropriate for themselves.
