Why don’t we respect old age?

Why don’t we respect old age?

Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it

-Confucius

This is a topic that has been on my mind for quite a while, stewing away.  And it has especially been rolling round in my mind now as I’m currently in NZ and have been to visit my 97 year old nana in the dementia-specialised ‘old people’s home’ where she lives.  You may remember my nana in blogs from a year ago when, at 96, she fell over, smashed up her hip, and had to go through a serious operation.  Several times, both immediately after the operation and through her recovery, we were called in as she was about to die. We could all see that she was dying. Except, as we can now see, she really wasn’t.  A year later, she’s alive and well and, despite what she may say, clearly not in a hurry to go anywhere. 

Visiting her at the home is like a lucky dip in that you have no idea what you’re getting each time.  Two trips ago there were people screaming, trying to sit down where there weren’t chairs, shouting at nurses and carers, demanding to be taken home. Nana decided she needed to go to the toilet and in the next second starts yelling “Nurse! Nurse! Nurse!” repeatedly at the top of her lungs, while an old guy, who hadn’t uttered a word all afternoon, yells back at her to “SHUT UP!”

Last time I visited it was totally different.  Nana was quieter and talkative and funny, no-one was being aggressive…mostly just amusing.  One old fellow complimented me twice on my nice legs, before making a beeline for another visitor and commenting on her “lovely pair of breasts”.  So all in all it was a good afternoon.

While there my mother does the thing lots of people do. Whenever someone seems upset, confused, is asleep drooling in a chair, starts yelling or asking for something strange (one man was convinced his razor was hidden in the kitchen cupboard), she gives me that pained half-smile that says “poor old thing.  Isn’t it a terrible way to live.”

Actually no, I don’t think so.

This is the way so many people see old age.  It’s common to find these types of homes ‘depressing’, to say “I hope I never get that old …or like that”, “they would never have wanted to end up like this”, “it would be better if they died”.

We think we respect old people because we treat them ‘kindly’ – though in this case there is a fine line between kind and patronising (or treating someone as you would a child).  That’s not respect.  When you look at someone and see the state of their life as pointless, as something that serves no use, that they may as well be dead because what’s the point of this depressing life……you don’t respect them, no matter how ‘kind’ you act towards them.  If you are looking at someone with pity then you don’t see the point, the meaning, to the experience they are currently living.  To them.

Every life has point.  Every life has meaning and beauty.  And every part of every life has beauty and meaning.  It’s not whether it’s there – it is – it’s simply whether you can see it yet or not.

I, and likely you too, live in a society that values productivity.  We admire those who do the most, those who achieve, those who ‘get shit done’.  A completed to-do list is a sign of achievement. To be crazy-busy is a sign of success…often no-one will actually ask what you’re crazy-busy doing.  As long as you’re crazy-busy we know that you are driven, motivated, successful and hard-working. Oh yeah, your life definitely has a point.  I watched an inspiring video of a 96 year old yoga teacher/dancer a little while ago.  People love that stuff. Look at this old person who has stayed young and fit – that’s how it should be!  She’s still productive, she’s achieving, she’s really living – now her life has a point!  Which is great…except what about my nana of the same age who happens to be having a very different experience.  The only exercising she does is of her lungs…sat in her chair yelling for the nurses who she thinks are her personal slaves. One experience is not more beautiful or meaningful or worthy than the other – they are just very different. Both deserve to be respected.

We often don’t value stillness, nothingness, quiet, slowness, pausing. In the Western world we are slowing coming back to value these things. Understanding that the hole you may feel inside you will likely not be filled by ticking off your to-do list, doing more things, making more money, or being crazy-busy. You can go on retreats now where you literally do nothing.  We need this because though sometimes you genuinely are very busy, the bigger problem is that we believe we are meant to be busy all the time and productive and ‘doing’ to achieve, to be valuable, to be worthwhile.  But this valuing-of-slowness has not yet quite made it to valuing one of the greatest slownesses we may experience, when we may seem to not be achieving or producing much of anything at all – Getting really, really, really old.

Like with many other things – death being the perfect example – we don’t need to change the thing (we usually can’t). The thing itself isn’t the problem.  It’s our perception of the thing. And, as always, the difference is in the questions you ask.  Think of someone you know like my nana and ask yourself what the value in their experience is.  Ask this not trying to figure out if there is value.  There is…it is just a matter of you being able to find it. Ask this as a search for what is there but what you haven’t yet seen.

Maybe after a lifetime of busyness, this is their slow.

Maybe after a lifetime of trying to escape themselves, this is their time to be with themselves.

Maybe after a lifetime of total independence and self-reliance (which can often have elements of not trusting others, or fear that you won’t be loved if you ‘need’ or show weakness or vulnerability) this is their chance to show their deepest weaknesses and vulnerabilities.  To be able to openly be the parts of themselves they had feared and hated the most…and be supported through it.

Maybe after a lifetime of looking after themselves and others this is their time to surrender and be completely looked after by others, right down to being dressed, washed, fed.

Maybe, like my nana, they have lived a life of some kind of oppression. My grandad was a bit of a mean old bastard in a lot of ways and Nana spent many years fairly quiet, living under his rule, sighing loudly and regularly, and meditating for hours which I think was really her way to just sit in her room away from him and everyone else.  Now ‘quiet’ is the last thing she is and she doesn’t ever sigh.  The last few years have been her time to yell, scream, be demanding as hell when she wants something, shout till she gets it…and bite the odd doctor while in hospital.  Not always easy for us, the nurses, or the nearly-bitten doctors….but this doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a point in her life.

If you want to truly respect someone, then respect the life they are living right now.  Because this too is part of their story and part of who they are.  Look for the meaning, the purpose in where they are right now – whether this is old age, sickness, dying,  grief.  I promise you it is always there to find. You just have to open your eyes and, more importantly, open your mind.

Kristie

xx

Tagged as: death, getting old, old age