Age Well

We are all aging. I remember as a young pastor sitting beside an elderly man, in a hospital room where his beloved wife lay dying. Looking heavenward, slowly brushing back the few hairs on his head, he said softly, more to himself than to me, “I don’t know which is harder, growing up or growing old.” While we must each decide that for ourselves, I offer an acronym on aging well:

A: Accept that you are aging. Denying it will not help you with the fascinating changes sweeping across your life’s landscape. Older persons trying to look like their youthful counterparts is both comical and sad. Elderly men don’t look any better in tank tops than elderly women do in bikinis. Act and dress age-appropriate. Trust that as baby boomers age, aging will become more acceptable, if not fashionable.

Though death will eventually win your sometimes painful wrestling match with aging, don’t give up too easily or early. As Dylan Thomas wrote to his dying father: “Do not go gentle into that good night, / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

G: Gradual is best. Take heart that aging is a slow process, made slower if you do the things you need to do to maintain whatever level of health you can. That means taking care of your body and soul, eating right, exercising, getting sufficient sleep and rest, avoiding stress and learning to meditate.

I: Interests are important. Exercise your mind as well as your body. Research strongly suggests that maintaining and developing new interests will keep your brain functioning better, longer.

I remember my great-aunt Dorothy. After she turned eighty, she began fading. She would spend her days in front of the television, dozing off and on. A once bright and dynamite businesswoman, she had lost her interest in living.

Then she chanced to meet Harry at a bingo game, the one thing she would still leave her home to enjoy. It was love at first sight. Harry was five years younger than she was, and smaller in frame. From that initial meeting until her death ten years later, they were inseparable. Dorothy’s personality and passion for life rapidly returned, generated by her love interest. Never underrate the power of passion, and not just for persons, but also for causes or even hobbies.

N: Nurture yourself and others. Let others nurture you. I have known many elderly persons who wanted to maintain their independence, including refusing to let others do for them things that others really wanted to do, which they needed to let them do. At the heart of aging well is permitting yourself to receive some of the fruit from your prior years of personal investment in others. Simply say, “Thank you,” and mean it.

G: Graceful does it. The finest way to age is gracefully. To age gracefully means not to be ashamed of aging. The wisdom you attain is more important to others than you might think. I remember talking with an elderly grandfather who rightly felt he was the only one in his family who could go and talk with a grandson. He alone had the moral authority years of living wisely and well could beget. He and I discussed what he could say and how best to say it.

He did talk to the wayward grandson, and apparently gained the desired outcome. His graceful way of presenting things proved winsome. It seems that as we age, most of us become less judgmental and more accepting of others. Hopefully, that makes us easier to be around.