Juniors and Seniors

agedcareguide.com.au

Strange title for a Senior? Probably. The Senior penning this column is 93 years old. But some would say 93 years young just for kicks. Seniors officially may begin at the age of 55; or 62, or 65— and some with a handicap or more could be considered old if not a senior maybe younger than 55.

Living in a Retirement Village where most residents are 62 or more, I heard that one retirement home had an average age of 82 with the average age of incomers the same (82). In its desire to recruit younger seniors, it spent one year striving to lower the age only to discover that the incoming age was also 82!

Interestingly, living with only seniors of variable ages, dispositions, handicaps, backgrounds, economic conditions, spirituality etc. is quite unusual compared with their previous situations. Some move in reluctantly and others with exhilaration. Our entry into our Retirement Home was delayed for several months because the person who had planned to exit was stalled until her family finally gave in.

Here are some statistics that seem to be quite accurate:

• 3.6 percent of seniors reside in a nursing home 50 percent of seniors will battle at least two chronic conditions
• 33 percent live in federally subsidized housing
• 42 percent of people 65 and older are part of minority groups

And Seniors today are the fastest growing age group which may surprise many. In 2019, about 16.5 percent of the American population was 65 years old or over; a figure which is expected to reach 22 percent by 2050.

Because of increases in life expectancy at older ages, people 90 and older now comprise 4.7 percent of the older population (age 65 and older), as compared with only 2.8 percent in 1980. Today there are just over 40 million elderly people in the United States (out of a population of roughly 330 million).

From 1950-2050 our senior population grew from 8% to 22%. In recent years, the aging population of the United States has come into focus as a cause for concern, as the nature of work and retirement is expected to change in order to keep up. Then add to this the huge numbers of abortions in later years and its affect on our future population growth and median age.

Without infants, parents, teenagers, adults there would be no seniors, no aunts and uncles, cousins or in-laws, grandparents or neighbors. Hard to imagine, isn't it? Fortunately humans are not the products of technology, modern or ancient.

We are not robotic creatures but meticulously, divinely designed male and female, with some elements similar to non humans (like animals and alligators) with flesh, blood, lungs, hearts, eyes and ears but somethings more, like intelligence and an invisible soul. Humans and others live and die, some get buried but only human souls live on after death.

There are two destinations, not for flesh and blood, not for seniors or juniors but for whom we call souls, spiritual not physical, that are separated after death by the divine Designer of humans whom we call God. If these two destinations include all who have lived, infants and seniors, which one do you think is your destination?