What I Saw With Meals on Wheels

Pre-Covid, when I wasn’t traveling, a friend and I delivered lunches for Meals on Wheels. We worked twice a month, for over ten years. Sometimes the list of recipients stayed the same for months, at other times we’d see two or three replacements in quick succession.

A couple of guys each had a room in a shared house. A couple of women lived in apartment buildings. Some people lived in what was obviously low income/subsidized housing. But most people lived in single-family homes, sometimes very nice single family homes with well-tended grounds. While one woman had filled her living room with boxes and received us in her wheelchair in the hall, most houses looked to be in good condition.

Almost everyone we saw lived alone, although a few had caretakers, at least for an hour or two. For others it’s likely we were the only people they saw that day. There was one charming older couple, who received us at the top of the steps to their house in a small residential enclave off a main drag.

When someone dropped off the list we would ask about the change. Sometimes the person had gone to hospital and sometimes they later returned, but sometimes they had gone to hospital and were then no longer able to live alone. Sometimes relatives had stepped in and moved the person to some form of assisted living or nursing care. In the case of the married couple the husband eventually died, and it became clear that the wife couldn’t manage alone.

Most of these people were aging in place (a few were younger but in ill health). Over time, almost everyone on our original list was unable to continue to do so. I don’t say that seeing these people trying to manage alone is what convinced me to move to a Continuing Care Retirement Community, but I have to believe that at least subconsciously it influenced me to look into senior living options other than staying in my house. It also informed my concern for surviving spouses.