"No mother should outlive her child," Granny said, and then was silent as she struggled to find words that could express her grief. Anguished eyes swam behind her thick bifocals. Her gnarled, arthritic hands rested in her lap and she sat, head bowed, on the couch in the front of the room. People paused to offer comforting words, gently touched her hands with theirs. "We’re so sorry for your loss, Katherine. If we can do anything . . . " Granny nodded graciously, thanked them for coming, promised to stay in touch. And then she slipped into her private reverie, reliving perhaps special times she had had with her only daughter.
My mother’s funeral was the last event that all of my brothers and sisters and I attended together. That was in 1976. The eight of us have never all been in the same place at the same time since then. Our father preceded our mother in death. Our parents were the glue that held the family together and they had provided a purpose for us all to gather on occasion. When we sold their house, we lost a focal point in our lives, although none of us realized it at the time.
The anniversary clock on my bookcase belonged to my parents. It is one of those gold clocks with the glass dome. The mechanism that operates it looks like a miniature chandelier and is visible in the middle of the dome. Its four tiny suspended gold balls rotate back and forth to measure and mark the time. It is a lovely clock. I don’t remember when it stopped working, but family legend has it that it stopped when my father died. Anyway, it hasn’t worked in years. It was one of the few things I took from my mother’s house when we were dividing up her belongings after her funeral. I love that old clock, as useless as it is now. It has read 4:25 for years.
My mother was 59 when she died, in poor health and worn out from the stresses of raising a very large family in the days before modern conveniences were the norm. Fifty-nine is too young for someone to be dying.
Her early and unexpected death was a distressing surprise to all of us. Dad’s death a year and a half earlier had shattered our family as we faced for the first time the fragility and tenuousness of life. This second death so soon afterwards was hard to make sense of. Years later I thought that my mother’s untimely death was a blessing for her. While she missed the joys of knowing many grandchildren, she was also spared great heartache as her children struggled to get on with their own fragile lives, making many bad choices and serious mistakes along the way.
* * *
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a cruel psychological disorder and when it manifests itself in old age it is brutal. Marie probably had OCD most of her life. Her sons remember her odd behavior and her control over them when they were young. Marie would not let them play sports, she kept the family on a strict 6:00 PM dinner routine, rain or shine, and she refused to ride in elevators, even choosing to walk up to the sixth floor hospital room when her son Vince was in his car accident. And she cleaned and cleaned their house, and she washed and washed her hands until the skin was as thin as tissue paper, and brittle and cracked, and you could see blue veins very close to the surface. She refused to take any medication and by the time she died, at the age of 79, Marie’s OCD had ravaged her mind and her life. She could barely distinguish between reality and fantasy. She couldn’t stand sunlight or odors. No one could touch her and she used paper napkins to pick up things. "No one can reach her any more," said Vince after he would visit his mother. Indeed, by this time she was unreachable, in a world she herself made smaller and smaller every day. Her death was sad and an enormous relief at the same time.
* * *
Growing old can be a frightful prospect when we consider the possibility of illnesses that can devastate us and our loved ones. An illness that is physical, psychological, or even spiritual, can create havoc in any family, and it is an especially poignant event for older people looking forward to their "golden years." We all know families that have been deeply wounded by such experiences and the unfairness of it is difficult to comprehend. As a result, many people fear growing old. They fear losing their ability to reason, to connect with others in meaningful communication, to take in the world around them. All the richness of our lives can be devastated by the illnesses of old age, and by "richness" I certainly do not refer to money. People who age gracefully and positively, despite adversity, share a special secret: take delight in relationships, anticipate each morning with joy, and thank whatever deity you believe in for every meaningful moment of your life.
* * *
Grace, friend and mentor, is an example of someone with a hopeful approach to aging. Grace got interested in yoga as a young woman and she taught a class at night for years while she was teaching elementary school and raising her family. After she and Stan retired and moved to Arkansas she looked for things to do to keep herself active. This was a retirement community, after all, but Grace was never one to "retire" from anything. She taught yoga to the other seniors in the community center every week until Stan died and she moved to Oregon to be near one of her daughters. A recent stroke rules yoga out at the present time, but at 85 years of age Grace still enjoys her daily walks and she religiously tends to her beautiful flower garden. She loves nothing more than an afternoon with an old friend, a warm conversation, a good book, or a hearty cup of tea. Grace draws people in with her soft smile and she treasures every human encounter.
It is a gift to have had a friend for as long as I have known Paula. Paula just earned tenure at her college in Madison, Wisconsin. She is the new philosophy department chair and she is realizing how much she hates the administrative and political goings-on that attend any administrative position. "Just let me teach," she laments. She loves her students and she takes pure delight in seeing them learn and grow. Paula is creative and quite unconventional. Her study and publications focus on women’s spirituality. "Do you believe in God?" she asked me recently. I was taken off-guard and didn’t know how to answer at the moment. "Well, yes," I mumbled. "But not that traditional stuff we grew up with. God is more like a spirit around us, a connection with other people. I can’t explain it." Although, Lord knows, I should be able to explain it after all those years of Catholic school. Paula is my age. She’s a free spirit, energetic and mystical. She’s been my friend for thirty years.
Gretchen and I met for lunch last week and had a great visit. I had not seen her in months. Over lunch we reminisced about the job we worked at together 15 years ago. This is where we had met. We both hated that job. "The older I get," Gretchen said, "the more I resent what that place did to me, what those people put me through. Doesn’t it make you angry?" "Not any more," I said. "I choose my battles now and I decided a long time ago I need to just get on with my life. Why waste energy on that old crap?" Gretchen just turned 40; I am about to turn 50.
* * *
As a young person I was overbearingly self-righteous. I was right about everything and anyone who disagreed with me was wrong. Period. I did have high ideals: pro-civil rights, pro-women’s issues; against the Vietnam war, against the government in general. Whoa! Those were heady days of protest and conflict and confusion. I was right there. Right in the midst of everything. I loved being part of the crowd, part of the excitement. I was a "flower child," but not quite a hippie, and not a yippie, although I did later become a yuppie, or more precisely a DINK (double income; no kids). In truth, I have mellowed since those sweet, mind-blowing days of my youth.
All the passion and radicalism I possessed as a teenager and in my twenties is still very much alive for me, although I am more mindful at this age, and more thoughtful and deliberate in what I do. Friends and meaningful relationships are more important to me now than ever, and I cherish and nourish these relationships. Growing older for me has meant toning down some of the rage and drama of my earlier years and adopting a more peaceful attitude towards life. The spirits that have watched over me for the first fifty years will surely be around for the next fifty. I
will be calling on the muses that Paula and Grace seem to implore to help me transition into my 50th year.
In 1997 Robert Raines published a book called A Time to Live: Seven Tasks of Creative Aging. In his introduction he says that the rite of passage from youth to middle age to elder years is filled with challenges and change. If you thought you were looking for meaning in your life when you were in your twenties, you should prepare yourself to face the fact that the search continues on throughout your entire life. A Zen-like approach that the search itself is what is meaningful is a positive attitude to adopt. Raines reflects on the idea of aging as a passage:
We begin to yearn for fulfillment of our lifeÆs meaning and to understand that it will only come, if at all, on the way, in finding the promise of the passage. Home is on the road, beyond the horizon, in the next season. Passage seems a deep and capacious term for [a] painful, hopeful pilgrimage . . . We may be inspired or intimidated by stories of famous older people who made a successful passage and achieved great things in their seventies and eighties. But most of all, we want to live our own deepest hopes for ourselves and the larger community, and do it honestly, passionately, and generously. There is no normative, one-size-fits-all passage. We are not so much looking for models to imitate, as to pool our wisdom in the process of discerning and living our own authentic way. We seek transformation, not just success or survival. As always, change and growth involve painful birthing, and take us into unknown and often fearsome places, where the fresh energy of hope awaits us. (3)
Books are being published every other day giving advice about how to age gracefully, how to face the passage with courage. Baby boomers are especially vocal at this point, as millions of them are spilling out of their forties and into their fifties. Of everything I have read lately, I think Robert Raines’s advice is the most succinct and sensible. He offers seven steps or tasks we should accomplish as we move into the next phase of the aging process:
1. Waking Up: recognizing your own mortality and realizing that now is the time to engage, again, the meaning and direction of your life.
2. Embracing Sorrow: acknowledging your own losses and griefs and the pain of others . . .
3. Savoring Blessedness: remembering and delighting in all the ways you have been, are, and can be a blessed and blessing person in your life.
4. Re-imagining Work: reviewing and revising the ways in which you want to contribute to society, give your "gift," complete your lifework, live out your purpose in the years ahead.
5. Nurturing Intimacy: deepening your inter-connections with spouse/partner/lover, siblings, children, grandchildren, other family members, friends, nature, yourself, God.
6. Seeking Forgiveness: doing what you can to clear the decks of your relationships so as to enter the later years with as unburdened a heart as possible.
While it does not seem possible that I am about to turn 50, that big
day is indeed right around the corner. How did all those years fly by so
fast? (Oh, no! I sound like my mother!) Even though I know it is about
to happen, I still expect to wake up on July 8, 1999, somewhat startled
to realize I am no longer in my forties. When I say now, "I am in my forties,"
no one really knows which end of that spectrum I sit on. To say, "I am
in my fifties," has a significantly different ring to it. People retire
in their fifties. People become grandparents in their fifties and celebrate
momentous wedding anniversaries in their fifties. But people also create
and build and invent in their fifties. They touch lives and influence others,
and they pave the way for others to grow and contribute to society. I think
the baby boomers may be making more of this aging idea than is really there.
I have decided that turning 50 will be an adventure, a passage of hope
and good cheer for me. Words I hope people will use to describe me as I
grow older are: gracious in my encounters with others; thoughtful in how
I treat people; warm and welcoming of others; caring, mindful, positive,
and hopeful. I’m looking forward to an exciting journey.
Work Cited
Raines, Robert. A Time to Live: Seven Tasks of Creative Aging. New York: Penguin, 1997.