Florida is still the only place where, standing in front of an ATM or waiting in front of a supermarket check-out register, a seventy-year-old columnist may find himself the youngest person in line.
In this respect, the state of Florida is America’s future self. By the year 2025, many other states across the country will look the way the Sunshine State does now.
On the first leg of an extended speaking tour last week, I visited Indiatlantic, a community on Florida’s east coast near Melbourne. There to speak about aging and spirituality, I met many elders and talked with them about the experience of growing older in a warm climate.
Not all those with whom I conversed are permanent residents of that region; some are so-called “snow birds,” people who flock to Florida for the winter. Of these latter a certain percentage may be taking a test flight to see if they want to leave their home nest and settle there.
The women and men whom I encountered in the few days of my stay all belonged to a Catholic parish in Indiatlantic. To a person they feel enthusiastic about their church, a fact that may help explain why they show themselves happy about being in Florida.
“For me, it’s the best thing I ever did,” says Julienne Leffingwell of her move from the north. “The good weather means you can think better and smile better,” explains Evelyn Podgurski, age 81. “When you are up north and have to run from car to house, you don’t get to smile much,” she adds.
Asked if she minds living with so many age peers, Julienne answers emphatically: “I prefer to live with people my age. I feel I’m out of step with the younger generation. I’m uncomfortable around them, I have nothing to talk about with them. I don’t know anything about their world except what I read in the papers.”
Evelyn, however, tempers her friend’s remarks:
“There are many good young people.”
What issues strike them as important? Long-term care insurance, for one. They asked my advice about buying it, a question impossible to answer simply. That the question arises at all shows that they are solidly middle-class.
The mess in Washington gives rise to a larger question: “Which way is the country going to go with your older people since we have a president who can’t tell the truth?,” asks Evelyn.
Have some of their age peers made a mistake in leaving their homes elsewhere and moving to Florida? These two spirited ladies think so. Evelyn does not hesitate to put the number of those who regret it at thirty or forty percent. Julienne attributes the difficulties people encounter to poor planning and unforeseen problems.
Many women go through the experience of bereavement after their move. The ladies think that losses can be handled well if the community gives moral support to those left alone. The secret is creating opportunities for the bereaved to get involved. “When you have deep grieving, the best way to get out of it is to help others,” says Evelyn. Her parish church has a team of lay people whose special ministry is to reach out to those who have suffered personal loss.
Spirituality counts for a great deal with my informants. Another woman, Mary Kosick, told me with a buoyancy in her voice: “I may be retired from the physical world, but in the spiritual life I’m just starting.”
The people whom I ran into at the church were almost all similarly buoyant and lively. Without a doubt the most upbeat was a woman named Loretta who had just received much unwitting testimony to the love in which she was held by others in the church community.
Just a few days previous to my visit, one of her fellow volunteers had tried to reach Loretta on the telephone. Answering at the other end was a man who in response to the question “Is Loretta there?” burst into tears. “Loretta’s dead,” he sobbed.
That provoked a visit from the caller and other women who wished to console the husband and help him with arrangements. When they rang the doorbell at Loretta’s home and the door opened, whom did they see but Loretta herself standing there alive and well!
It had been either a wrong number or Loretta’s husband was playing a joke (which he denies). In any event Loretta is now known as “the woman who came back from the dead.” Much hilarity attaches to this description of a popular woman who now knows herself to be much loved.
“I feel so appreciated,” she beams. She has had the altogether rare experience of knowing before her real death that other people hold her in great esteem and affection. It has raised her self-esteem sky high and left everyone else with exuberant feelings too.
Richard Griffin