Thursday, October 6, 2011

Old Age is Not for Sissies


The Next Exciting Installment of
"The Gospel According to Saint Baby Boomer"


I am sure you have heard that "old" adage about "sissies," haven't you?

Found myself using the cliche when talking to my 84 year old Dad when we were on the way to the airport the other day.  On my way back to Marietta on the flight (and during that well-know post 9/11 extended waiting time we seem to have so much of in airports) I was thinking some more about how true this has become as before our eyes my parents have been living it out. 

And although sometimes we say, "You're as young as you feel," I am not really sure that is as encouraging as I once thought it was.

A friend who turned 91 recently, but who never willingly revealed her age in any of her friends' memory of the past, was asked by a comparative stranger how old she is now.   She was what you might call spunky when she retorted, "One hundred and ninety-three!"
It's been mentioned before that the older we get the faster time seems to go, and no matter what kinds of "reasonable explanations" I am given for this phenomenon, as far as I am concerned it is still not fair.
Now when we were freshmen in high school, our English teacher, Mr. Hunt, would sometimes give us pop quizzes and we whined, "That's not fair!"  
I can still see him with my mind's eye as he looked blandly back at us and replied, "That's OK.  It's time you learned that life is not fair.
That took the wind out of our sails, but much later when I was recovering from a divorce and attending a work shop about that, I was given a new perspective on fairness.  The facilitator made the point that sometimes we receive undeserved good as well as random triggers of unhappiness or frustration.
She illustrated her point with a story about two baseball games in which each one of her sons played.  One was a very good athlete and the other one . . . well, not so much.  The talented ball player lost a home run because of what was perceived as an unfair call by the umpire.  And her less athletic son made a serendipitous grand slammer due to a comedy of errors (though the other team was no doubt not amused).

So, yeah . . . life's not fair!  But sometimes we benefit from the "unfairness."  And do we keep score in a way that reflects that the hurts are weighted the same way as the blessings?

I think at times that I have held onto incidents that have wounded me much more often than I have been grateful for the blessed events, sad to say.  I need to do better.

At our 40th Reunion, many of us caught up not only on what we had been up to in the interim since our graduation, but also what had happened to our families of origin.  A lot of us knew each others' parents very well.  And it was sad to hear how many of them had already passed on.

Those who were blessed to still have their folks with them were often dealing with trying to help them deal with the problems of many octogenarians.  I heard a while ago that we are losing about 1500 members of our parents' generation each week.  It was a sobering thought, and one that made me ever more grateful that my beloved Mom and Dad are still with us.

Sometimes being the adult children of octogenarians is not for sissies, either, though of course it must be much more difficult for our elders.

As Baby Boomers, not only do our parents have a much higher life expectancy than even their parents (unless they suffered the consequences of the wars of their early adult lives), but a lot of us are already retired, or aware that the clock is ticking more loudly for us as we move closer to it .

I trust we will show ourselves that we can be as brave, courageous and bold as the people of our parents' generation have shown themselves to be when it is our turn.  As I typed that, I had an image of the holy "Host of Witnesses" nodding wisely with somewhat quizzical expressions on their faces.

Yes.  I guess God only knows! 


Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013
kwharris777@gmail.com