AGING GRACEFULLY AS “PRIME-TIMERS” (a.k.a. “KEEN-AGERS”)
A number of years ago there was a wonderful movie titled
“On Golden Pond”
that portrayed so realistically the struggles of the latter years of adulthood and
intergenerational conflict. Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda won Academy Awards
for their roles as Ethel and Norman, an elderly couple who engaged in serious soul-searching
while spending their 48th summer at their lakeside cabin in Maine. Norman was to
celebrate his 80th birthday, studying memorabilia of earlier years of youthful vitality
that were on display in the cabin. There were moments of forgetfulness.
Fear struck Norman when he thought he was lost in the woods picking berries.
He seemed bitter about his aches, pains, and fragile heart condition; and he was
preoccupied with thoughts of his own death. His estranged daughter, played
by Jane Fonda, his daughter in real life, came to the cabin with her fiancé and
his 13-year-old son, Billy, to celebrate Norman’s birthday. During an extended
stay, Billy pulled Norman outside of himself as Norman taught the boy to fish.
After an altercation between Norman and Billy, Ethel talked to the boy, saying:
“Sometimes you have to look hard at a person and remember he’s doing the best
he can. He’s just trying to find his way, that’s all. Just like you.” Nor-man
and Billy bonded, which brought reconciliation between father and daughter. Perhaps
“On Golden Pond” contains a bit of our own personal stories of trying to
adjust to the aging process and build bridges of better understanding with our family
members on either side of our own generation.
As I think about my own journey through time, it’s quite clear as to when I left
midlife to become a keenager. I had received unsolicited membership information
from AARP. I know I had entered elderhood when I asked for my first “senior
discount” and the clerk did not card me! There are other tell-tale
signs that you have arrived at the golden years. Your children look middle-aged!
You get winded playing cards. At my age I discovered that if I started out with
nothing, I still have most of it; my wild oats turned into prunes and All Bran.
If God wanted me to touch my toes, God would have put them on my knees. At
my age I remember when the Dead Sea was only sick. At my age, my favorite hymns
include “Precious Lord, Take My Hand and Help Me Up,” “Go, Tell It On the Mountain,
But Speak Up,” and “Just a Slower Walk With Thee.” Inside every
older person is a younger person who wonders what happened! And so it’s been said
there are three stages in life: youth, maturity, and “my, you’re looking good!”
But becoming a Prime-Timer isn’t all that bad. People get out of the way when
you drive down the street. You don’t have to hold your stomach in no matter who
walks into the room. Your joints are more accurate predicting the weather
than the TV Weather Channel.
We seasoned adults face many challenges. Some have to do with cultural attitudes
about the elderly. Our society glorifies youthfulness. Sometimes this
leads to age discrimination, disrespect, elder abuse, of which there are over 800,000
reported cases a year in the United States, and scams designed to defraud the elderly
out of their life’s savings. In addition, we seasoned adults find our deductions
out of Social Security increasing year after year. The Social Security reforms
that included so-called prescription benefits do not help all older Americans on
fixed incomes. We are finding our annual health care insurance premiums rising by
double-digit percentage rates with increased deductibles and additional coverage
restrictions. But all of these negative impacts upon we Prime-Timers apparently
is nothing new. The prophet, speaking out against the sin of despising and
oppressing the elderly, asserted in a different passage than read earlier: “You
showed them no mercy; on the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy” (47:6).
And so it was...and so it is.
Little wonder that many older adults feel rejected, feel like failures and so they
tend to be more cautious and withdraw from the larger community to avoid making
mistakes that might seem to confirm their sense of inadequacy. In the extreme
this leads to erecting protective barriers that make these persons appear rigid
and inflexible. Resentment and distrust drive them into deeper despair. In
a throw-away society, they themselves feel tossed aside as obsolete, that their
years of experience and wisdom count for nothing. These persons experience the loss
of self-esteem.
There are other more obvious major challenges of elderhood: biological and physiological
changes that limit capacity; chronic discomfort; ill health that is sometimes life-threatening;
the loss of loved ones and friends through death; and a sense of displacement and
loss of identity and value when retirement comes unless one plans ahead -- retiring into something with eager anticipation, not retiring from something.
It should not be surprising to learn, then, that while persons 65 years of age and
older comprise about 13% of the population, they account for 19% of all suicides
-- 50% above the national average; about 6,000 elder suicides a year. Most experts
believe the actual, unofficial number is much higher (according to a study done
by Ezra Ochshorn of the Florida Mental Health Institute in Tampa). Un-fortunately,
not enough primary care physicians and social workers are trained to evaluate suicidal
risk among the elderly. This is significant because research indicates about 70%
of seniors who take their own lives see a physician within the preceding month.
Most of them were remembered as having given verbal or behavioral clues as to their
intentions. With the number of older Americans expected to double by the year 2030,
these self-inflicted fatalities will increase exponentially unless we all take steps
to prevent the causal factors. We need to raise public awareness, increase the number
of health and mental-health professionals trained in geriatrics, combat the stigma
among the elderly associated with receiving mental-health treatment, and develop
and fund community treatment programs for older citizens. But also we must
end the scourge of ageism that permeates our culture. When everyone, including elder
adults, are valued as persons of sacred worth, their sense of purpose and self-esteem
will improve, creating an environment in which individuals rarely choose to kill
themselves.
There is indeed a potential for a productive life in elderhood. In her 80s
by now, Daisy Newman is an acclaimed New England sculptor. An aged John Glenn
returned to the rigors of an astronaut not long ago. The late Mother Teresa’s passion
for serving the poor and sick in Calcutta continued into her old age. Former President
Jimmy Carter is a frequent volunteer with Habitat For Humanity, and, through the
Carter Center in Atlanta, he works hard to resolve international conflicts. I observe
many active Prime-Timers here at First Church doing all kinds of volunteer work
and finding a creative outlet through community organizations like the Ageless Repertory
Theater or composing and publishing high quality music exemplified by our own Michael
Cleveland. The 84-year-old prophet, Anna, set a good biblical example for us all.
She hung around the Jerusalem Temple to celebrate special events. When the
infant Jesus was brought to the Temple, she moved out among the crowd, praising
God and assuring the people that God’s redemption would be extended through this
Jesus (Lk. 2:36-38). It is well for us to understand that “you don’t grow
old; when you cease to grow, you are old” (Reuel Howe).
Those of us in the golden years don’t have to vegetate. My goodness, what an inspiration
John Chappel is as he runs marathons and even greater distances! We don’t have to
reminisce about the past but create new memories. Studies show that those who keep
their minds active through reading or doing cross-word puzzles, who surround themselves
with young children and think young and stay active, have zest in later adult years.
Elder adults still have something to contribute to our common life. For some of
us, there is the wonderful vocation of grandparenting. It’s been said that “grandkids
are God’s reward for our having survived parenthood” (Barbara Johnson)
As elder adults continue to grow, especially in the spiritual dimension, we have
a lot to offer others around us in terms of life experiences, faith struggles overcome,
love, and service. Morrie Schwartz, the late sociology professor at Brandeis University,
typifies for me a healthy spirituality of a man who was ending his teaching career
diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig’s
disease. His inspiring, poignant story has been told by one of his students, Mitch
Albom, in the book, Tuesdays With Morrie. Many of the book’s chapters recount
the conversations between Morrie and Mitch, in which we find a man bravely adjusting
to his increasingly debilitating condition with occasional good humor. For example,
in their conversation about the fear of aging, Mitch asked his beloved professor,
given his illness, how he managed to stay positive. Morrie replied, “I’m an independent
person, so my inclination was to fight all of this - being helped from the car,
having someone else dress me. I felt a little ashamed, because our culture tells
us we should be ashamed if we can’t wipe our own behind. But then I figured, Forget
what the culture says. I have ignored the culture much of my life. I am not going
to be ashamed. What’s the big deal? And you know what? The strangest thing.
I began to enjoy my dependency...It’s like going back to being
a child again. Someone to bathe you. Someone to lift you. Someone to wipe you. We
all know how to be a child. It’s inside all of us. For me, it’s just remembering
how to enjoy it.”
Later in the conversation on that same Tuesday visit, Morrie offered this perspective
on aging: “All this emphasis on youth - I don’t buy it. Listen, I know what a
misery being young can be, so don’t tell me it’s so great.” Morrie continued
by recalling all the students who came to him with their struggles and feelings
of inadequacies. Morrie went to say, “Mitch, it is impossible for the old not
to envy the young. But the issue is to accept who you are and revel in that...I
had my time to be in my thirties, and now is my time to be seventy-eight.” And
then Morrie told Mitch something that is both simple and profound in its truth:
“You have to find what’s good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now.”
What spiritual maturity and wisdom that is! I think “Tuesdays With
Morrie” ought to be re-quired reading for anyone in midlife on the brink of
moving on into elderhood.
Faith certainly has a role to play in our latter years. We come to realize that
human effort alone can’t save us. When we experience the rejection of others, including
age discrimination, we embrace God’s acceptance of us. We know what it means to
rely on God’s grace. Our prayer becomes that of the psalmist: “In you, O Lord,
I take refuge...even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me...You who
have made me see many calamities will revive me again...” And we take
comfort in the promise of grace through the prophet: “[You] who have been
borne by me from your birth...even to your old age I am [God], even when
you turn gray I will carry you..and will save.”
I asked God, “How much time do I have before I die?”
God replied,
“Enough to make a difference.” That’s aging gracefully.
Rev. John H. Emerson
Pastor Emeritus
Pastoral Consultant to Senior Ministries
