by Anitra Kitts, Munich IWC
Anitra, a member of Munich International Women’s Club and long term resident of Germany, provides the rationale for becoming more involved with this important topic in this insightful piece.
MIWC went one step further! They established an Elder Care group, and even developed a website focused on the topic.
Join the conversation, and let “We’re all going to be here for each other,” become your slogan and mine!
When I first came to Munich, like many, I thought it was only for a few years. Three, maybe five. I didn’t worry about long-term life issues like health care, aging, or community. I was concentrating more on how to grocery shop when functionally illiterate in German or how much of Europe we could cover before heading back home. One business closure, a local contract, a plague, several American Presidential elections, eleven years, and a little heart condition later I came to realize that there was more about living in Germany I needed to know.
I put out an email asking if other members of the Munich International Women’s Club shared my concern, and before long, about 15 women gathered in my living room ready to generate a list of questions. Most of the women were/are married to Germans and thus here for the duration. But some of us are long-term migrants making up our minds about what to do after retirement. Stay or go? A few of us had spouses already in a medical crisis, another few had already passed through into widowhood. Many of us had family members, local and far away, also in fragile states of aging and unfortunately in denial. We had questions.
How do wills and inheritance law – which are significantly different from those in the US – work here? How does the power of attorney work here, and who advocates for us in hospital situations? How do German health insurance (public/private) and social agencies support aging in place or movement to assisted living? We brainstormed topics and invited speakers to provide answers. We also claimed a desire to see ourselves and this stage of our lives also filled with blessings, not just depressing challenges.
We have recorded presentations on Zoom and are in the process of uploading edited versions to an HTML page inside the MIWC website. We have gathered brochures and links to social services, plus articles and books on the subjects at hand. One of us is in the process of designing a way to designate “advisors” available to MIWC members in need of care for family or themselves. We’re reaching out to Region 5 (Germany/Austria/Moldova) Clubs because we know some are also looking at the same or similar issues. We’re still figuring out what we want to know and how we want to remember our research for others.
At one point early in our process, one of the women looked around the room and said with a little bit of amazement, “We’re all going to be here for each other,” and everyone nodded. The fear of the unknown and possibly unmanageable, tangibly eased in each of us as we took in and affirmed our collective intention. This isn’t easy work to do. But it is easier when there is community.