Article Courtesy of Sun Sentinel

By Stephen Goldstein

Published August 4, 2013

This is one family's Florida story, and just a glimmer of it, of course. It is remarkable for being unremarkable — a web of threads so common they are barely noteworthy. 

And yet, they are like the bits and pieces of millions of people's stories, just with different names and dates, which is why this one story needs to get written, hopefully read, saved. It is the story of what became of a generation's honest pursuit of the end of the rainbow.

"Moving to Florida": On April 24, 1977, my parents moved out of the house they had built and moved into 24 years earlier on April 24. (I have failed to make numerological sense out of those coincidences. But feel free to try.) My grandmother had died a year earlier. So, for the first time in her life, my mother felt free, not just free to move, existentially free, liberated. Back then freedom meant moving to Florida. My parents said their "good-byes," no easy task after living in the same city from the time they were born. And they joined the latest wave of transplants lured by images of the good life in a sod-perfect, amenity-rich, gated community.

"Living in Broward": My gregarious mother and introspective father settled into a comfortable life -- playing tennis, writing short stories, getting a real estate license, swimming, not golfing or fishing, chasing high-interest rate CDs. Their natural yin and yang made them socially attractive. Ever the entertainers, they developed an ever wider circle of friends. My father perfected the martini long before it was cool again. He was well-known for pouring with a heavy hand. They loved living near their grandchildren, my brother and his wife. Never politically active, they somehow wound up making phone calls to get out the vote for Jimmy Carter. They were up for doing everything. For the better part of five years, they appeared to have it all.

"Growing Old in Broward": My father's health had been an issue since 1961. But it didn't stop him or make an invalid of him. In fact, he outlived the doctors who told him he was going to die. He fought two bouts of lymphoma. To my mother's chagrin, my brother and I sent him a stripper dressed as a student nurse when he was recovering from surgery on a leg. She was miffed that he struggled to stay awake during the bump-and-grind, delighted that his pain medicine put him to sleep. We rarely enjoyed holidays the way I imagine other people do. Almost without fail, my father would wind up in the hospital. My parents celebrated their 50th anniversary with family and a few friends. He was already showing signs of Parkinson's. A week later, he went to bed and never got out of it. My mother became his primary caregiver. He died a year later, on his 79th birthday. 

"Dying in Broward": In June, 2013, the Congressional Budget Office issued the report "Rising Demand for Long-Term Services and Supports for Elderly People." I was prepared to use its data and information to urge everyone to plan ahead for their and their family's future. But there was nothing new in it. It put me to sleep; I spared you. We all know that the fastest growing segments of the population are the oldest old and the cost of caring for the elderly will be crushing. 

Instead, I chose to use my family's narrative as a foil against meaningless numbers and percentages —and as a vastly different "brochure" about the good life behind condo walls.

Broward is not a place for old men and women. It has nothing to enable people to grow old independently, unless you define independence as living in an assisted living facility, where you pay hefty entrance fees, get to choose meal plans, and generally let others run your life. 

After decades of honing their marketing, developers keep pressing the right buttons so they can profit from the next generation of dreamers. None has the vision to turn Broward into the best place in which to grow old.

I suspect they learned a long time ago that there is no end of the rainbow, but don't want anyone to know. I say, "The end of the rainbow is wherever your family may be, not a golf course."