A long, unsparing consideration of old age care in America makes me think of my conversation yesterday with a 92-year old friend. We met near the Foggy Bottom metro and walked together through Washington Circle to a lunch date with a third friend. I asked my buddy what she’d been up to.
“Going through a lot of stuff and throwing most of it out,” she answered. “I don’t want to leave my daughter with too much to handle when I’m gone.”
My friend is sharp-witted and physically robust; she lives alone in an elegant apartment in the chic part of Alexandria, Virginia. “Is your health okay?” I asked. “Is anything wrong?”
“Not a thing. But I’m looking into Zurich.”
“Why?”
“My biggest fear is becoming dependent. I just can’t handle that prospect at all. I’d rather avoid it.”
“But I mean there’s independent living, etc. There are all sorts of steps between living fully on your own and being really dependent.”
“Not really. All my friends who made any sort of move in that direction went downhill very fast and I desperately don’t want that.”
We went on to discuss the bureaucratic details of the Swiss way of death versus the apparently more burdensome administrative niceties of what Washington DC offers. And then, both of us smiling in the city sunlight, we met our friend at a hotel cafe and enjoyed lunch together.