. . .Not for Sissies

Between my grandmother and mother, I had a wealth of maxims as a child growing up. As these two amazing women aged, so did their sayings. In my late teens, my mother was fixated on potential promiscuity. “Why buy a cow when milk’s so cheap?” actually escaped my understanding until I was in college and realized it wasn’t about cows. Grandma Rosie’s best in her later years was: “We grow too soon old and too late smart.” A saying worthy of a plaque these days.

In her early eighties and still going strong, Bette Davis’s famous remark became my mother’s mantra: “Aging is not for sissies.” I could imagine, still in my 50s, how that could be, but had decades to go before the saying followed me around like a loyal puppy. The “sissies” expression reminds that aging is not a straightforward journey. It requires a willingness to confront the inevitable challenges of advancing years, to do the best we can, and to carry on.

Now I see my mother’s aging face in my own if I linger in front of my bathroom mirror. Fortunately, I consider myself lucky that I may have also inherited her longevity genes and at least one-half of her German determination that carried her to age ninety seven. It occurs to me often that I should be so lucky.

I’ll spare you a laundry list of challenges for sissies, but a few lighter ones are worth mentioning. A friend recommended the author David Lodge’s novel Deaf Sentence. And while he, mom, and I have hearing loss, despite the daily frustration I was able to laugh out loud in a few places. My mother had an early hearing device that you had to manually turn each one down when the noise was too much. I would see her reach for “silence” in the cozy café we liked when the dirty dish bin was being filled with plates and mugs. Often, when our three generation “girls” went there, Mom would tune out and just enjoy being with us. Now, it’s my turn to focus on a grocery list while being bombarded by some screechy female singer in the store. And the unnerving pause while I try to think of a word or an object. Finally it comes to me, but often in the middle of the night.

I have an age-related “bad hip joint” and after a long search finally found a provider who didn’t want to pass Go and land directly on a hip replacement. Her hands-on help and exercises have made taking long walks pain free. Now, it’s up to me to do the damn exercises and take those “good for me” walks. This brings me back to my mother and her fitness commitment into her eighties when she walked the high school track. She was the darling of the teen jocks who welcomed her arrival. This is my challenge and public dedication to get my butt either out there or on the mat with my exercise sheet nearby. Thanks, Mom.

Thank god for subtitles is all I can say when my daughter and I are streaming a series. That’s why I love print books, now mainly the classics, holding them in my hands, my reading glasses on – lost in a zone of quiet pleasure. I’m working my way through Mark Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc and still think about a recent re-read of The Scarlet Letter.

Mark Twain had a lot to say about growing old, and his quotes on the subject are both humorous and insightful. Here are a few struck home:

• “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” 
• “Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.” 

• “The trick is to die young at an old age.” 
• “I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” 

For me, while my own passing crosses my mind more often now, I am curious about what’s next. Not in a hurry, mind you, but not afraid at least for now.

In her sixties, Simone de Beauvoir authored a 650-page book, La Vieillesse (1970) — translated as Old Age or The Coming of Age — to reveal the truth about aging. For Beauvoir, the question lurking underneath the crisis of old age was: “Can I become a different being while I still remain myself?” It’s a great question and one I find encouraging; to let whatever wisdom I have gathered help me become as authentic as possible.  

Yet another wise elder who lived her life to the fullest

and inspired so many others.