Dear LPG,

Since retirement I find that keeping in touch has helped me to keep my life in perspective, and in a way I feel that I have had lots of help on my way through that period of your life when you start to wonder what life is all about. Having looked forward to being there for so long, I firstly found that I really enjoyed doing all those things I promised that I would, which included a lot of DIY and putting time into studying and pursuing a mini career in counselling.   The first couple of years were a bit of a holiday and I enjoyed being able to get lazy and please myself about the things that I wanted to do, but then life got a bit slow and I really depended on my closest telephone friends to keep me grounded; one lesson that Covid-19 has really reinforced.

I have been retired for about seven years now and I cannot believe just how quickly the time has gone.  I was lucky to have been working with someone who is just a year older than me and, since our work lives came to an end, we have kept in touch by telephoning each other at least every other day, and comparing notes has made the process a bit easier for both of us to cope with.

Throughout my adult life, I have also always been very close to one of my cousins who is about six years older than me.  She started off really looking forward to all that free time and then realised that she had never been busier than in retirement as she found so many things to do, but she became ill to the point that, by the time I retired five years later, she was having difficulty leaving the house without help.  She has a very attentive husband, though she would often tell me that she would have to tell him to get on with his life and not spend all of it looking after her. I can tell that it works because even when we chat for so long that there is no time for me to have a quick chat with him, she never fails to bring me up to date with how his latest project is going, as well as hers.

She always argues that while circumstances have limited where she can go, there is still lots for her to do.  Now, some twelve years on, she continues to enjoy getting involved with her creative hobbies, talking to her friends and insists on not spending all her time being cared for by her husband while doing many things she has found that she can still do.  She says that she knows that he thinks he should always be there because he cares and loves her so much and sometime she has, with the best will in the world, thrown him out to get on with his own pursuits.  She insists that her independence gives her and her husband something new to tell each other at the end of each day. 

My workmate, on the other hand, has a partner, Karen, whose legs are also her problem, and over the past three or four years I have noticed that whenever we talk and I ask him ‘what are you going to do tomorrow?’, his next sentence always starts with ‘Karen says…’ after which what he is going to do always depends on what his partner has decided.  It is as if she always needs her husband to be there for her whatever she is doing and there is also something else that is very evident.  In the past three or so years I have listened to my friend gradually become disenchanted with life and I can hear his dream of renovating a classic car and having the perfect garden are not really getting any closer to becoming reality.  I am also aware of the added frustration and, every now and then, an air of resentment that is now mixed with his sense of obligation as a carer.

I have spent my conversations with my two friends working something out.  Both of the ladies in question have mobility problems, but from my perspective I can see one who is determined to maximise her independence while the other is letting go of hers without even realising the effect it is having on her other half.

I also enjoy a chat with my friend’s wife from time to time and I would love to tell her how I feel but I fear that I might make things worse.  If I could, my message is simple and directed to those who are now beginning to find themselves physically more dependent on their nearest and dearest.  I have no idea what it is like to discover that you are slowly becoming in need of more help to get you through the day, but I know, from observing my friends, that the chances are that there will be a time when you have no choice but to need so much more of someone else’s time to just get through the day, but please be determined and make sure that that time is as far off as possible for the sake of the one who will become your carer.  Encourage them to do some of what they want to do and remember that your other half needs to be cared for too. 

AK, Mottingham