Scottsdale senior found her purpose and ‘perfect’ job

MALA BLOMQUIST | MANAGING EDITOR

When Sharon Clement moved to Arizona from Chicago more than 30 years ago, she continued working as a real estate agent; later, she became a mortgage broker, working in a bank for several years until deciding she had had enough and was ready to retire.

“You know, the business world is not glamorous,” said Clement, 73. “Not that I’m doing anything that’s terribly glamorous now, but it’s perfect.”

Clement’s “perfect” job now is working with seniors through People Who Need People, Senior Care & Companionship, the business she started in 2015. She tried retirement but got “terribly bored” and decided she needed to do something. At the same time, a friend who worked as a doula told her that one of her clients had a grandmother in a nursing home who needed assistance.

“I said, ‘I’m calling her. I can help her.’” said Clement. “She was a Jewish woman, Anna Levy was her name, and I was with her until the day she died.” Clement is also Jewish but said that most of her clients are not.

Levy had Alzheimer’s disease and when they first met, Clement said she was very depressed and didn’t want to get out of bed or go anywhere.

“I got her up, socialized with her, got her moving and we had so much fun together,” she said. “We laughed, we danced and we sang. It was a wonderful match.”

When Levy passed, the receptionist at her senior care facility referred Clement to another family looking for companionship for their mother. She worked with that woman for a couple of years and was beginning to pick up more clients when COVID19 hit. The state locked down the senior facilities and Clement was out of business. Recently, a friend put a blurb about her services in a neighborhood newsletter and a family reached out to hire Clement. This woman lives independently but has some physical limitations, so Clement helps her with household chores and drives her wherever she needs to go.

“I’ve been very lucky to work with some wonderful people and get to know the families and get close with them — I like the relationships,” said Clement.

Many of the people who hire her are part of the “sandwich generation,” adults who are caring for their aging parents while also raising or financially supporting their children.

So, between working full time and car- ing for children, it leaves little time for entertaining an aging parent. Also, facility workers are busy “taking care of the hard stuff,” as Clement puts it, and don’t have time to engage residents or take them out, so people “end up just sitting around.”

She said even small things can make a difference. For example, Clement helps one woman to get up, dressed and ready to go to the lunchroom. After a short time, she developed a whole gang of friends that would sit at the lunch table and visit.

“I would say hello to everybody, even the people that weren’t my clients,” she said. “Touching their hand, just (providing) some human contact — people need that and it gives me a purpose, which I think is good for me too.”

Since many of her clientele have some form of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, it can sometimes get tricky. “I had one lady who took a couple of shots at me, and I had to duck and weave to get away,” she recalled.

She admits she was very nervous when she first started the work, but it came together naturally.

“One lady that I took care of, when she passed, I went to the service at the Jewish cemetery and I looked over and

Having

five feet away was my mother’s and father’s grave,” said Clement. She told the woman’s daughter that she hoped they were all playing a mahjong game somewhere together.

Experiences like that make her believe that this is the work she is supposed to be doing.

“It’s the most gratifying work I’ve ever done. You come to a point in your life where you need a purpose — you find out how important it is to have a purpose,” said Clement. “As long as I’m able, I’m going to keep doing it.” JN

For more information, contact Clement at sharon. clement@gmail.com.

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