Wednesday, April 04, 2007
By Ted Roelofs and Shandra Martinez
The Grand Rapids Press

Given Michigan winters, the move south 18 years ago made perfect sense
to Mary Payne.

Life in Florida meant warm weather, a new circle of friends and as much
golf as she and her husband, Ed, wanted.

"It was lovely. My husband and I played at least three times a week. I
developed all kinds of friends there."

Her husband died in 1992. In 2005, she went into kidney failure and was
put on dialysis.

Her next move: A U-turn back to West Michigan, where Payne, 82, lives at Heather Hills
Retirement Village in Kentwood and relies on the support of extended
family.

"I am extremely fortunate. I knew I needed the support of my family
here," Payne said.

Payne has plenty of company. And as the population ages, experts predict
rising numbers of "boomerang" elderly will land back in states such as
Michigan.

"The older population is booming," said Jackie O'Connor, assistant
director of the Area Agency on Aging of Western Michigan. "This type of
caregiving is only going to increase."

This wave of boomerang seniors promises to swell as 79 million baby
boomers age and longevity increases. There are 10.7 million people ages
80 and above. That number is projected to rise to 15.6 million by 2025,
the census says.

The number of Michigan residents over age 65 is projected to grow by
860,000 from 2000 to 2030 -- a 71 percent increase. At the same time,
the overall population is projected to grow by just under 8 percent by
2030.

O'Connor said it's understandable that West Michigan residents head
south when they retire.

"If you are active and healthy, that's great. Once you become more frail
and there isn't a family member to take care of you, your instinct is to
come home, to the family."

But O'Connor said that can strain family members who take on the task of
caring for an elderly parent or relative. Sandwiched between the demands
of work, their own family and the needs of elderly parents, they may
feel like a candle burned at both ends.

"They feel it's their complete responsibility. But we are not superwomen
or supermen.

"Though they want to care for their parents, they are not able to do it
24 hours a day and seven days a week and maintain a job and care for
children they may have. Sometimes we need to ask for help."

Assistance is available, including transportation, programs to supervise
an elderly resident for a day, or sending in cleaning help. For elderly
who remain in their homes, Medicaid offers a support program as an
alternative to nursing care.

But that program's budget has been cut, leaving hundreds of families on
a waiting list. In many cases, O'Connor said, the tasks simply fall to
family.

"Statistics already show that 80 percent of caring is done by family and
friends. It would be exorbitant if all the cost was picked up by a
governmental body," she said.

Charles Longino, director of the gerontology program at Wake Forest
University, has studied the movement of seniors over the past two
decades.

Longino calls those who move back "assistance migrants," and he expects
the pattern to accelerate as the baby boomers retire. Longino said the
elderly move back for two primary reasons: health and death of a spouse.

"Spouses tend to be terrific caregivers for one another," Longino said.
"Once one person is gone, they may not be able to go it alone."

When Gladys Zuidema's husband, Delbert, retired in the 1980s, the couple
decided to spend their days in sunshine. They sold their home in Wyoming
and bought a mobile home in a suburb of St. Petersburg, Fla., where they
lived six months of the year, returning to Michigan in the summer to
help their youngest son with his Saugatuck campground.

"It was a great life. My husband and I said it was the best years of our
life," Zuidema said.

But there was an understanding that their Florida lifestyle was tied to
their good health.

"We always said if one of us got sick, we would come back. We didn't
want to be there if that happened," Zuidema said.

That happened about a decade ago, when Delbert had a stroke at age 74.
He died five years later. These days, Zuidema, 86, passes her days in
her room at Resthaven, a senior-care facility in Holland she moved into
after breaking her hip five years ago.

Her son Tom Zuidema, 64, says he notices some of his neighbors in his
Phoenix-area senior community are returning to their hometowns to be
near friends and family.

"They say, 'Who is going to take care of me in the end?'" Tom Zuidema
said.

Ada Township resident Kathy Sweedyk saw no choice when her mother, Mary
Payne, went into kidney failure in Florida in the spring of 2005. She
got a call from one of Payne's neighbors: Her mother was in the
hospital.

She rushed down, finding her mother in frail health and on kidney
dialysis.

"I said, 'Mother, it's time for you to move back,'" recalled Sweedyk.

Sweedyk, 50, talks to her mother every day by telephone and visits her
three or four times a week.

"When something goes wrong, she calls Kathy," she said.

Payne is in relatively good health now, though she needs to be driven to
dialysis three times a week. The family divided the responsibility, with
Payne and six stepchildren taking turns.

Payne was hospitalized five or six times in her first year back in
Michigan, for ailments ranging from a blood infection to breathing
trouble to complications from kidney failure.

Sweedyk lost count of the number of times she visited her mother in the
hospital, intervening on her behalf with doctors or nurses. Other times,
she picked up and delivered medication for her mother.

It can be a lot of work, but Sweedyk realizes that one day she may be in
the same position. She is glad to step up to the plate.

"I feel so blessed to have her around. I always say that to my kids,
'Just remember this, someday you will be this old.'"