Just joined the Senior Health and Aging Support Group.  This was my first post in that forum: Senior Health, an oxymoron... wow do I hear you on that! My parents are 88 (Dad) and almost 81 (Mom). If they have enough working parts between the two of them for one... bless them, they're a walking medical encyclopedia of things that can go wrong with a body and not kill you yet. What makes it especially hard for me is the 500+ miles I moved away. It was a necessary move 31 years ago, but now, sigh. There's really no way to fly directly, and it's still an hour drive from the nearest airport, faster just to wear my lead shoes in the car. Which means when a crisis happens I pretty much have to drop everything, pack a bag, and drive 11 hours. I went to see them at the end of the school year (teacher here) because Dad had fallen a few times and couldn't get up. Mom is so disabled all she could do was throw him a pillow and dial 911. He was doing better when I saw him, but still - I've never seen him so passive or so frail. I had an opportunity to speak with their family physician and asked him why he was so weak. Doc didn't really have an answer - just a half hour of waffle that more or less boiled down to "he's 88." They really are having trouble maintaining in their house, and yet they refuse to get help. Actually, what it is, is they refuse to fill out any form that requires a financial disclosure that would qualify them for help AND, my mother is so embarrassed by the state of her house that she won't let anyone in to help her clean it. If the place were clean enough she might let them in (catch 22)... Dad has voluntarily stopped driving, Mom shouldn't be. They live in such a rural area that when she is no longer able to get behind the wheel they will be truly trapped. She has been thinking about moving, but they really don't have the energy to go through all of that. I've thought about moving them in with us, HOWEVER, in order to accommodate them we would need to put on an addition. We can't afford that, and neither could they even if they got full price for their home (we don't live in an upscale neighborhood, it's the difference between East Coast cost of living and an economically depressed rural area). Plus I don't think they'd do the travel very well and I don't think it would be right to uproot them from their social network. My only sibling is mentally disabled and lives in a supervised apartment, which also means when the inevitable happens with our parents I will have to help her cope too (luckily she has mental health resources nearby). Mom keeps dropping little worrying hints. Sometimes I don't know which ones to take seriously. For the last 20 years she's said to me, "well, we've been slowing down." After a while I started asking her, "how slow is slow, Mom? Nursing home slow?" And she'd chuckle and say "no." But this summer she said to me in all seriousness, "I don't know if we'll make it through this winter." Today in a phone conversation after telling me how they struggled through a recent bout of flu she said, "if you thought about having Golden Years, forget it!" She went on to say she felt the doctor doesn't really understand what it means to be old, what the problems are. "People didn't used to last this long - maybe we shouldn't." That sent a rather horrid little chill down my spine, like this is the first time I've ever heard her say something indicating that maybe she was tired enough to want to give up. I wish I knew what to do. I wish I knew what would help them. I wish I knew how to persuade them to accept help. I worry that something horrible will happen - a car accident or a fall down the stairs. I keep telling her that her last words shouldn't have to be "oh shit!" I wish I knew how to make their Golden Years something that wasn't such an exhausting and depressing struggle. I want them to be safe and I want them to be happy. I wish I knew how to help them have both.