Shortly after my 83rd birthday I moved to a mammoth, seven-story red brick senior citizen housing complex occupying a city block in a gritty part of town.  It’s a place for elders who need help or soon will need help with daily living, anything from occasional hot meals and once a week cleaning of one’s little apartment to around-the-clock intensive nursing.

I’m relatively healthy for my age, but ever since my wife died six years ago I’ve been painfully aware of how hard it is to be aging and alone.  Nobody to know me; nobody to call 911 if I’m in trouble; nobody to remind me of things I’m forgetting; nobody to give me a sense that I matter; nobody to help me hang on to the life meanings I have or to find new ones.  It’s lonely, too lonely, living alone.  And thinking realistically about where things would be going with me, it seemed time to consider assisted living.  I had recently given up driving after twice almost hitting pedestrians I didn’t see until the last second and after getting lost three times in neighborhoods I used to navigate with ease.  I decided to stop stovetop cooking because I kept forgetting I had something heating on the stove, ruined the food and, the last time I heated food on the stove, ruined my favorite pot.  I knew I needed to be in assisted living, and this place looked good.  I could afford it if I didn’t live so long that I spent all my savings.  I also liked that it offered multiple levels of care, so if I needed more help I could get it without having to find and move to a different place.

This place had seemed my best option, but my first days there I thought I had made a terrible mistake.  Many of the residents in assisted living were well into dementia, and being around them was deeply depressing, made me feel even more alone than I was before moving here, and made me worry that their dementia could drag me into dementia.  Worse yet, the assisted living residents who didn’t seem demented were like a bunch of high school kids, with cliques, gossip, competitiveness, bullies, jealousies, grudges, and plenty of people looking desperately to partner up with someone.  I needed to develop friendships here, but how could I find friends in all that craziness?  Luckily I found Jake.

Six days after moving into this place I walked into the dining room at suppertime.  There were no empty tables, but along the far wall I saw a table for two that only one person was sitting at.  I walked over and asked if I could join him, and he said, “Sure.  Please sit down.  My name’s Jake.  I’m new here, only been here a month.  I know you’re new here too, but I don’t know your name.”

I introduced myself and we started chatting.  There was a sincere warmth to Jake, and it was obvious that his brain worked well, which meant that being with him would be good for my brain.  We talked about our personal histories.  We were both widowers, both had adult kids who lived far away, and both were retired teachers.

After that first meeting Jake and I ate at least one meal together every day.  We also took daily walks together in the corridors of the assisted living wing, two old guys with damaged knees, hips that barely worked, sore feet, aching backs, and a lot to talk about.  Jake was a wonderful find. We both were readers and had read many of the same books, particularly mystery novels.  We had both traveled widely and were both Democrats.  We also were Jewish and seemed to be the only Jews among the assisted living residents.

I don’t mean to say that Jake and I were on the same page about everything.  Jake was a football fan; I was bored by football.  Jake drank at least two beers a day; I gave up alcohol years ago.  So when we were together at the bar (yes, some assisted living facilities have bars), he would drink beer and I would sip herbal tea.  I was a vegetarian; Jake was an omnivore.  Luckily, neither of us was put off by our differences.  In fact we had many engaging conversations about those differences.  Jake was the friend I had hoped I would find.

But one day about three months into our friendship, while Jake and I were having lunch, he looked at me with a silly smile on his face and said, “I’ve got something big to tell you.  It’s about Irene, the woman who lives down the hall from me.  She and I have started a relationship.  I’m really attracted to her.  But I have to apologize to you, because this means you and I will eat together less often and spend less time with each other.  I’m really sorry, but I want to see if I can make things work with Irene.”

Irene was charming, well read, and brainy.  She had a warm smile and made friends easily.  I could understand why Jake was eager to get something going with her.  I knew Jake was still grieving the death of his wife and had fantasies of having a romantic and even sexual relationship.  I cared about him too much to begrudge his relationship with Irene, so I said, “Way to go, Jake!  She’s a gem.  And lucky her to find you.  I hope you two really click.  I’ll miss having my usual Jake-time, but I’m glad for you.  She’s quite a catch.”

In the next days the reality of how much Jake-time I had lost hit home.  I was alone way too much of the time.  That felt toxic and pushed me to think about becoming friends with assisted living residents who I previously hadn’t found interesting.  I figured that in walking, vision, hearing, memory, ability to get a good night’s sleep, and a lot of other areas of life, I had for years been learning to live with less.  So why not learn to live with less in friendships?  I was lucky to still have bits of my rich friendship with Jake, but I had to accept that I needed to find other friends, even if they weren’t very interesting.

Once I thought that through I joined the Scrabble club, the poetry club, and the chess club.  I though that being active in those clubs would keep my brain working.  Almost immediately I learned that some people who I wanted to have nothing to do with when I first moved to this place were actually rather engaging and interesting.  There was a mystery in that, in what happened to change me (or maybe them) so that I could fit in with and enjoy hanging out with people who had seemed so sophomoric or in early stage dementia only a few weeks before.  My guess was that they hadn’t changed but that I was more comfortable with people being themselves, and that comfort enabled me to appreciate the ways they were good people.  Soon I had two new friends, Earl and Henry.  So Jake’s having started his relationship with Irene had made things better for me by motivating me to connect with other people.  Besides I still had engaging conversations with Jake almost every day.

Hearing Jake talk about Irene I wondered whether they could really make it as a couple.  He sounded like a 16 year old with a crush–lots of idealization, lots of talk about her beauty, but possibly not knowing her very well.  So it wasn’t obvious to me that they had a future together.  In fact, after a month of high intensity togetherness they pulled apart.  I thought it was that they just didn’t know how to make a high-contact, high-intensity relationship work in their 80s, but what Jake said to me was quite different.  “It’s not that we’re incompatible or that our fantasies of what we might have together differ.  The problem is that neither of us likes being a topic of gossip.  People are keeping track of when she and I enter or leave one another’s apartment, and they spread wild rumors about what we do in private.  We both hate being spied on and those ignorant, insulting rumors about us.  It upsets me a lot, and Irene much more.  So we’ve decided to spend less time together.”

After they pulled away from each other Jake and I were almost back to our old relationship, except that he often talked about Irene, had lunch or dinner with her four days a week, and would go with her to Saturday night movies at the theater on the main floor of our housing complex, where they held hands in the dark.

This housing complex for seniors is for people near the end of life, so it wasn’t surprising that almost every week at least one resident died.  But healthwise Jake and I were doing okay.  We visited MDs for checkups and attention to ongoing health concerns, but we were both what our docs called “stable.”  Sadly, on a suffocatingly hot July afternoon Jake returned from what he thought was to be a routine medical consultation but was definitelhy not routine.  He said, “Things don’t look good for me.  I have to see an oncologist and have tests for what probably is pancreatic cancer.”

In the next two weeks Jake had his tests and saw the oncologist.  When he came back from the oncologist we met in the bar to talk about it.  Jake’s eyes were sad, but his voice was calm and matter-of-fact.  “Bad news, stage IV pancreatic cancer.  It’s spread to my liver and lungs.  Way too advanced to cure.  The oncologist says I probably have only two or three months to live.  She said chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery might give me a bit more time, but they would have big costs in terms of quality of life.  I’ve got to think that through, whether I want to get into chemo, radiation, and surgery.”

After a few days of thinking over his options Jake decided he didn’t want aggressive medical treatment just to get a few weeks more of life.  So he signed up for a hospice pain-management program. The next day a hospice nurse visited Jake and arranged to come once a week until she would be needed more often.  Jake also arranged with the nursing service in our housing complex to provide nursing care in his apartment when it became necessary.  That was a great relief to him, to know he could spend his last days in his assisted living apartment.

When Jake told Irene about his diagnosis she wept and offered to help him in whatever way she could.  But he said he didn’t want her to be burdened and that he wouldn’t feel comfortable being dependent on her.  She said that was crazy and infuriating and that for her it would be a privilege to help him.  He dug in, and she kept saying that it wouldn’t be a burden and she wanted to be there for him.  I found out about that argument later in the day, when I ran into Irene in the mailroom.  She said, “I think the world of Jake, but he is so unbelievably stubborn.”

Jake’s son lives 1200 miles away, has a demanding job and a busy family life, so he couldn’t spend much time visiting and helping Jake.  Jake had plenty of acquaintances in the assisted living part of the housing complex and in the surrounding community, but Irene and I were clearly the local people he was closest to.  So I was not surprised when Jake asked Irene and me to assume medical power of attorney for him when he reached the point when he couldn’t speak for himself.  Irene and I both agreed to do it.  And so Jake filled out the medical power of attorney form and had it notarized at the the housing complex office.

Soon Jake’s skin was yellowing and he was losing weight and was obviously weaker.  Now when we were together he didn’t have much to say, but when he did talk it was often about his past—his childhood, his parents, his brothers and sister, his marriage, his kids, and his life as a teacher.

Jake and I both tried to be upbeat, but one day when we were together at lunch Jake glared at me and snarled, “Fuck you!”

I was shocked and mumbled, “What did I do?”

Jake replied with an angry look on his face and anger in his voice, “You’ll be alive and I won’t be.  You’ll be able to snuggle with Irene if she’ll have you.  You’ll know how things progress or don’t in the crazy politics in this country and be able to watch great football games.  You’ll be tasting food, watching sunsets, and living life.  I’ll be a rotting corpse in a hole in the ground.  So, fuck you!”

Once he explained himself I understood where Jake was coming from and didn’t feel defensive, just sad for him, and I said, “I’m sorry the cards were dealt the way they were.  I wish I could share my extra time on the planet with you.  And just for the record, I’m not interested in having a romantic relationship with Irene.”

Jake sighed and nodded, “Sorry I lashed out.  I don’t want to die soon, but I will.  I’m glad you’re with me here at the end.”

Over the next few weeks Jake alternated having meals with me and with Irene, though he wasn’t eating much.  We weren’t going on walks together anymore.  He could barely walk the thirty feet from his apartment to the elevator.

Soon Jake became bedridden and was on strong pain killers.  When he wasn’t sleeping, which was a lot, he was often rather dopey and out of it.  He and I still talked a bit about politics and sports, but I’m sure he was just doing that to be sociable.

Jake’s son came to say a last goodbye, a middle aged man who looked quite a bit like a young, plump version of Jake.  I was with them when Jake asked his son if he could say the Jewish prayer for the dead.  His son said he didn’t know how to, so Jake asked me to help his son say the prayer right then and there, and I did.  I’d say a Hebrew phrase in the prayer, then his son would repeat the Hebrew phrase, and together we went through the whole prayer.  I was having a tough time holding back my tears, and his son was too.

After his son left there was another week of Jake being awake less and less, and needing to be on higher doses of pain killer.  Late one afternoon Irene and I were in Jake’s bedroom, sitting on either side of him.  Irene was holding his hand.  He seemed to be asleep and was breathing shallowly and irregularly.  Suddenly he opened his eyes, looked at us, smiled, and said in a very weak voice, “I think this is it.”

Irene and I were both teary eyed.  Irene caressed Jake’s cheek and whispered to him, “I love you, Jake.”  Jake smiled at her and said in a very weak voice, “The feeling’s mutual.”  Then Jake looked at me, and I said, “Jake, we’ve had a good run together, and if there’s a heaven and I make it there, I hope we’ll have a lot more time together.”

Jake nodded and said, “Heaven.  I haven’t been thinking about it.  I’ve been so tired.  Yes, let’s the three of us meet there if we can.”

I put my hand on his shoulder, leaned over, and kissed him on the forehead.  “Thanks for being you, Jake.”

Paul Rosenblatt is a retired academic whose teaching, research, and academic writing often focused on close relationships and end of life issues.  In retirement he has been writing for literary magazines, with recent publications in Grey Sparrow Journal, Shark Reef, October Hill Magazine, The Twin Bill, Hektoen International, and other venues.