My Story: Courage to Age

The truth is that no one ever knows how difficult aging is until you get there. When you’re young, you don’t want to think about it. Besides, it won’t happen to you; everyone else, yes, but surely you won’t have to suffer all those indignities of aging: hearing aids, memory loss and not understanding how to use a smart phone. 

A lot of the popular reading material (such as AARP’s magazine) would lead you to believe that your retirement years are golden: traveling where and when you want; fine dinners with friends; or playing endless rounds of golf.

It’s true there are advantages to being older. For me, the biggest is having the time to slow down and appreciate the parts of life I was too busy to notice when I was working, like taking long walks, more time to read or learning to draw. But there’s also a lot of downsides, especially physical problems. For me, I can’t see well at night, so I’ve curtailed my driving; my knees and feet hurt when I hike, so I can’t go as far as I once did. For many, especially single women on limited incomes, dining at fine restaurants or cruising the Danube is a luxury. While friendships become more important, because it’s mainly our peers who understand what we’re going through, we lose friends through death, moving away or their withdrawal from the world because of physical or mental issues.

After we retire, we no longer have a role or place in the world, especially as the world changes faster than we can keep up with, leaving us older ones in the dust. Increasingly, we live in a world not of our making. Baby boomers made history just by being part of the largest generation in U.S. history. We made more history by being part of movements that ended the Vietnam War and that promoted rights for women and minorities.  Now I’m in a world that feels like it’s speeding past me (sometimes, literally, when I’m driving). I can’t keep up with all the rapid changes in technology; sometimes I don’t want to. New words (what the heck does “woke” mean?) sprout up daily on social media. When I sit down to watch TV, most shows are focused on dating, raising a family, getting ahead at work. Where are the shows and movies about my life?

In the college town where I live, almost all the restaurants I loved have been replaced by ones that are too loud for conversation and that offer food fare that’s not familiar (what’s the big deal with avocado toast?). A new generation has stamped its mark on culture— food, TV, movies—just like my generation did. It’s not my world anymore, and yet I’m not ready to leave it. I still want to be involved, but where do I fit in?

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Stories of Resilience: Kathryn

I don’t think Kathryn’s life was ever easy. She lost her husband when he was in his 50s, and, years later, one daughter committed suicide, and another rejected the whole family and dropped all contact with her mother. Yet I never saw Kathryn’s love of life quashed, even in her final years when her lungs started failing her.

She loved to travel, first with her husband, then with friends and later with her second husband—all over the world. She loved to sing and was in the choir; later, when she moved into a retirement facility, she put on concerts for the residents. There, she also started a newsletter and encouraged others to contribute. She took a poetry class and started writing poetry.  When her second husband became ill, she devoted herself to taking care of him, but still left time in her life for staying active with all her responsibilities.

When poor health forced her to move into an assisted living facility, she realized that fellow residents’ constant complaints about the place did no good, so she organized an advisory group to meet with the facility’s manager on a regular basis. The result was better communication and an improved place to live.

When she called to tell me that she was on hospice, she told me she hadn’t told her friends at the facility. She didn’t want them treating her any differently. Besides, she still had work to do with the advisory group, needed to find someone who could replace her when she was gone.

A few weeks before she died, she sent me the link to a video of her singing to another resident who was on her deathbed. That was typical of Kathryn: wanting to bring comfort but in her own way: using her beautiful voice to lift the dying woman’s spirits.

I didn’t get to see Kathryn before she died—she was on the other side of the country—but I hope someone sang to her. Maybe it was the angels.

If you have a story about someone–a friend, parent, spouse–who has demonstrated their own resilience in aging, please send to me, Kathy Kaiser, at kathyakaiser@gmail.com.

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