The Bell: The delusion of self-sufficiency

Our friendship grew slowly, over many years. She lived in my neighbourhood with her partner, in a very large old house – twice the size of mine – located only a few doors down the street.

You had to climb a few dozen stairs to reach the front door, which I began to do when her spouse was dying of cancer, and I would drop off food now and then, trying to find ways to support and care for them, even though I only knew them very casually.

They had lived in the neighbourhood 35 years, I had been here only a few years, and surely the other long-term residents would step up to help these two who were well respected. When I asked other neighbours to join in the food train, only one was willing to provide a meal, and only once. It was my first real awakening on realizing how unpractised we’ve become in what was once an ordinary neighbourly ethic.

Even though we are far from the days when you needed neighbours to help you raise a barn, it wasn’t that long ago when there was more of an awareness of how much you needed others; to borrow sugar or look after kids or pets in a pinch. When I was young, all the neighbours had permission to provide parental guidance to all children. Eyes were on the street and everyone benefited.

Has Amazon, and mobility and affluence formed a delusion in us that we can live autonomously and self-sufficiently? Maybe even something to value and take pride in? Does our privacy and independence – make us feel like we don’t need anyone, especially neighbours we want to keep at a distance?

Five years after my neighbour’s partner died, Judy, now in her early 70s, was beginning to decline in health, but remained fiercely private and closed off to outside help.

The pandemic opened up a bit of vulnerability when she disclosed to me how especially hard she found it, and welcomed meeting weekly for tea. I think I was her only regular connection. She had little family. A strained relationship with her only sibling, and two nieces in the area that she would see a few times a year – but preferred not to “bother” them when she needed to go to the doctor or hospital.

Our weekly visits eventually disclosed that she was eating mostly peanut butter on toast for daily sustenance, so I began making a weekly pot of nutritionally dense soup for her. As visits and conversations and trust deepened, I gently waded into hard conversations about aging in place, the challenges of living alone and declining mobility. She would go only so far into these conversations before shutting them down, uncomfortable with questions that rattled her very well rehearsed delusion of autonomy, even while her desperate need of support became increasingly obvious.

When I began visiting her home several times a week, needing to provide regular meals for her, and care for her dog, the cognitive decline started to become obvious. She eventually forgot how to charge her phone, or use the computer or stove. It was a hard season, when I was the only one aware, and no access to her doctor or family. Intelligent people like Judy – she was working on her PhD when I first met her – I discovered, can hide cognitive decline better than others. A hospital visit I drove her to finally revealed to medical staff her need for a cognitive assessment.

This led to being placed in the memory care unit, which eventually led to being diagnosed with advanced dementia. Her nieces arrived at my house (as I was the emergency contact), in shock, and needing her house key, which I alone was entrusted with.

Their grief and dismay expressed the reality of what would have likely rolled out if a neighbour hadn’t gotten involved. A slow, painful death after a fall on the many stairs, all alone, and maybe months before being found. It was heartbreaking for all.

The professional staff I engaged with in this very sad and tragic story disclosed that this reality is being played out in shocking numbers in our city. There are at least six single older people living alone on my street. I keep wondering what can be done preventatively? What’s clear is that no medical system or institution can provide what trusted and invested relationships can.

Three things I’ve concluded.

You can’t self-diagnosis cognitive decline. We need others close enough to observe and care enough to be involved.

Second, self-sufficiency and autonomy is a lie. If it is continued to be embraced, this delusion will burst and bite hard later in life. How can we learn practices that nurture healthy inter-dependence? We were created, not as individual machines, but to deeply belong and thrive within the diverse human family, a community where we are known.

I once heard the story of an older man who would weekly borrow a ladder from his busy, younger neighbour. Each week he would come for the ladder and ask for a cup of coffee and stay for a short visit. It was years later, when friendship bloomed, that the younger neighbour discovered that his elder neighbour never needed the ladder, but used it as a reason to make weekly connections and build friendship.

What a mutual gift to enjoy inter-generational friendships! It inspired me to intentionally not buy tools that I can borrow from neighbours. What tiny habits could help you lean away from practices that malformed us, and discover more ways to deepen inter-dependence?

Third, the historic nature of the neighbourhood is now recognized as essential and needs to be restored in our imaginations and values as one significant way to combat our isolated lives.

Close proximity and the frequency of running into neighbours is what builds social capital – that relational fabric in a community. Sociologists have been sounding the alarm regarding our plummeting social capital; the absence of it is impoverishing our lives and communities. It is what builds civil society. This social connectedness is a primary contributor to a person’s sense of wellness and it is shaped by our local, daily life with neighbours.

The Christian ethic to love your neighbour is understood as a primary expression of faith and is also the path to personal flourishing. When we voluntarily take an interest in others to contribute to their flourishing, we become less self-absorbed and our souls grow, opening up a way for us to also flourish. It may even lead to being a catalyst for the neighbourhood to wake up to collectively contribute to the common good.

So how do we personally combat the trends of ‘living above place’ versus being rooted, the trend of valuing the private over the common, and of the increasing isolation, fragmentation and speed of life? How do we lean toward values within our local life amongst neighbours, so that we all can live – and die – better?

Karen Reed lives in east Vancouver.

She has written this comment as a member of The Bell: Diverse Christian Voices in Vancouver. Go here to see earlier comments in the series.