Aging With My Pedal to the Metal

I've spent most of my life not giving much thought to old age. When I was young it seemed irrelevant, and when I was middle-aged I was too busy. Now that the kids are grown and I have time to reflect, I see old age as a car speeding toward a precipice. Someday, I will go over the edge and plunge to my doom, but until then I'm hoping I can continue to keep my foot pressed down to the floor on the accelerator.

“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.” — Kurt Vonnegut

My earliest memories of old people involve living a block away from the Firemen's Home in Boonton, New Jersey. Firemen who had no place to live when they got old stayed there. The elderly firemen used to stroll up and down our street for exercise and fresh air. They walked very slowly and smiled at us kids as we ran up and down the street playing noisily. We said hi to them; they said hi back. It never occurred to me to try to talk to them. They were odd-looking creatures—and after all, they were strangers.

Great Aunt Allie in the nursing home circa the 1960s.

I also spent a good part of my childhood visiting nursing homes to call on my grandmother's sister, Aunt Allie. These homes were smelly and filled with people who looked sad or scared. I have images from my childhood of the elderly staring into space as if they had been deserted on a street corner. I suppose, in a sense, they had.

What I didn't appreciate when I was a child was that while the elderly look old, inside they feel the same as anyone else. My 85-year-old mother tells me that sometimes when she looks in the mirror, she's surprised to see someone old staring back. "I feel the same way I did when I was 18," she says.

“It takes a long time to become young.”—Pablo Picasso

We seem to be living in a culture that de-valuates old age. People are always trying to look younger and erase wrinkles. Ironically, some cultures celebrate those wrinkles. According to Chinese face reading, every wrinkle on your face represents a lesson learned. To erase wrinkles is to erase the wisdom that's been gained. Nice thought. I'm tired of seeing commercials on how to erase my aging, as if it were a disease. I'm getting old. Deal with it. If my appearance is too hideous, then avert your eyes.

Cultures around the world have diverse ways of viewing old age, according to e-HeathyAging.com, Pulitzer prize-winning author Professor Jared Diamond and a few other sources:

Tenacious G (Grandma) feeling as young as ever.

• American Indians: They regard their elderly as knowledgeable and their older women as powerful. The grandmother is the heart of the family, and as she ages, the family cares for her in return for her years of devotion.
• Japan: Age is synonymous with wisdom and authority. Older people are the family advisers. The basic unit of Japanese society is the family, and the welfare of the family as a whole is placed above individual members. Elders are the nucleus around which families are built. They are seen as wise, respected, and most importantly, contributing members of society. Children take care of their parents long into their advanced years and consider it an honor.
• East Asia: Cultures steeped in a Confucian tradition place a high value on filial piety, obedience and respect. It is considered utterly despicable not to take care of your elderly parents.
• India: The elderly hold authority, with the right to control the wealth of the family. Matriarchs often run the household. As a sign of respect, Indians have a custom of touching the feet of an older person when they meet. They bow down their heads in front of the elderly as a sign of offering themselves as a vessel of service for the older individual.
• Latin America: The elderly are highly regarded because of their wisdom and inner strength. They are shown a high degree of respect and are cared for by the younger generation when they are no longer able to take care of themselves. This is usually done in the home as opposed to in a facility. Taking care of their elderly is a matter of honor and pride.
• Germany: They see dependence as a very negative quality and invest a lot of time and energy to keep themselves young and healthy. Some studies suggest that Americans consider themselves old at a much younger age than Germans and most of their European counterparts.
• Traditional nomadic tribes: They often abandon their elderly during their travel out of necessity. The healthy and young cannot carry the old and infirm on their backs—along with children, weapons and necessities—through perilous territory. 
• Paraguay’s Aché Indians: They assign certain young men the task of killing old people with an ax or spear, or burying them alive. They often experience famine so food can be scarce. 

Old age ain't no box of chocolates!

“Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week.” —Louis Kronenberger

So there are cultures that revere the elderly and consider caring for them an honor; cultures like the United States that consider the elderly unproductive and senile, and shove them away in nursing homes; and cultures that are too poor in food and resources to keep their elderly alive. I guess that puts the future American elderly like me in the mediocre middle. We aren't revered or respected, but we're not being whacked by a family member either.

My ambition at this point is to be one of those crazy old ladies who wears a red hat, protests for social justice as a member of the Raging Grannies, and keeps a small posse of cats for company. Like most people, I hope to live life to the fullest until I go over the cliff. In the meantime, I intend to keep my foot firmly pressed on the accelerator—and enjoy the ride.

Tenacious G: The Last Leaf

When I was in secondary school, I read a story by O Henry called The Last Leaf. The gist of the story was this (and forgive me if I get any details wrong; I read it more than 40 years ago):

A sickly young woman and an old painter lived in the same building. The old painter felt discouraged because his life was coming to an end and he had never painted a masterpiece. The young woman was discouraged because she didn't seem to be getting over her sickness. One day, she told the old painter that she was convinced that she would die when the last leaf fell off of the vine on the wall across from her bedroom window. The winter came and went, but the last leaf on the vine never fell. She took it as a divine sign that she would get well, and eventually she did. She wanted to share the good news with her friend, the painter. She asked someone in her building where he was. She was told that he had caught pneumonia painting a leaf on the wall across from her window and died. She realized he had finally painted his masterpiece—for her.

Tenacious G: The Last Leaf

The "last leaf," today, often refers to the last person of a generation who has not died. My mother, aka, Tenacious G, was lamenting to me the other day that everyone she talks about these days seems to be dead. I know that makes her feel sad, as it would anyone.

The day after she made that remark, I received a phone call from the son-in-law of the man she resided with for over ten years after my father passed away. They were very fond of each other, but when Michael fell ill, they had to split. He rejoined his family in Atlanta and Mom stayed up here with us. Michael called her every day for three years, until he became too ill to call her anymore.

The phone call from his son-in-law, Bill, was to tell me that he had passed away. Michael was 93, had lived a long life, but bone cancer finally took him. Bill said he had been on a morphine drip and passed peacefully. The family in Atlanta felt it was more appropriate for me to tell Mom.

I was going to see Mom the following day, so I wondered how to break it to her and how she would react. She asked me to take her to the Halloween Store so she could buy a wig for a costume she had recently purchased, then I suggested we visit a park in the area to enjoy the lovely day. We sat down on a bench, both of us watching a beautiful pair of swans on the lake—and I told her.

"Oh," she replied. "I knew he was very sick. At least he isn't suffering anymore." I thought there might be tears, but instead she was philosophical about it. I was surprised but relieved. I guess at this point in her life, she is accustomed to loss. And she and Michael had been separated for several years, so perhaps she had already grieved the passing of the relationship. "I've lost them both," she added, referring to my Dad and her boyfriend. And that was it.

One of the swans that failed to capture my mother's interest.

We sat there for a while and then she said, "The swans aren't doing anything at all. I'm bored. Let's go. I want to get back and try on my wig."

"Okay," I replied.

Mom was never one for sitting around. Nor has she ever been the type who indulged in feeling sorry for herself. Impatient, she was already on her feet and heading in an unstable gait toward the car. It was time to move on to the business of living.

Tenacious G at the Diner

Of late, my 84-year-old mother has developed a tendency to latch on to random ideas and not let go. This past Tuesday was no exception.

I sprang my mother from her assisted living facility for a 45-minute joy ride through the lush countryside of northwest New Jersey. The destination was Genesis Farms where I pick up my produce every other week. It's a nice outing for Mom and we get to spend some quality time together.

Her first random idea: Eggs are the enemy. When we got to the farm, I expressed disappointment that there were no eggs. Apparently the locally grown variety had sold out because of the recent national salmonella scare. Then, as if lecturing in a classroom, Mom turned and announced loudly to everyone in the farmhouse that "eggs are no good for you and you shouldn't be eating them." This, from a woman who vainly tried to get me to eat egg salad sandwiches for most of my childhood. Was she secretly trying to kill me? As a backup plan, I thought we could stop at Ralph's Egg Farm on the way to lunch. Mom would not hear of it. Not eating eggs had intensified to an impassioned cause. So I promised her I would not get any. This made her happy.

For lunch, we partook of a hallowed Jersey tradition and stopped off at a local diner. Like most restaurants of this ilk, the menu had a few hundred selections and Mom responded by taking a quick look, clapping shut the menu, then announcing that she would have whatever I was eating. Unfortunately, what I preferred to eat was a salad and I knew that wasn't what she wanted. I chose three favorites of hers from the menu and asked her which she liked best. She chose the hot turkey sandwich. Then I ordered a Caesar salad.

Second random idea: Food must match. The waitress left and Mom glared at me as if I had tricked her into ordering lutefisk with arsenic. She informed me in no uncertain terms that she would not eat her meal. I would have to eat it, because she had wanted the same thing I was ordering. I did not follow this logic, but the realization set in that despite my desire to have a salad today, it would have been better to have ordered the hot turkey sandwich.

There was a long silence between this realization and when the waitress finally brought the food. Mom stared at me, her arms crossed. It reminded me of my own stubborn posture when I was little and she had insisted that I could not leave the table until I finished eating everything on my plate.

The waitress came, my mother quietly watched her set down the food and she stared at it angrily because it did not match mine. “Just try it…” I suggested. “It looks good.” Fortunately, Mom was hungry, so she grudgingly picked up a fork, discovered her lunch was tasty and soon scarfed down the entire meal before I finished my salad.

“I’m glad you liked it,” I said, hoping for detente.

“I wanted the same thing that you had had,” she replied bitterly. This had never been a requirement before, so it had caught me off guard.

“You’re lucky you didn’t order it,” I said. “It wasn’t very good.” Which was true. It was a boring pile of lettuce crowned with overly dry chicken chunks and little else. It did not inspire hunger, so I had it wrapped to take home.

Perhaps this latest twist in Mom's behavior is karmic payback for my being an impossibly picky eater when she was raising me. I feel certain I was not a delight to have around at meal time.  Now it's her turn. When you think about it, sooner or later, life has a mysterious tendency to balance things out.