Voice Within – Blog Update

It’s dusty grey out. The trees are bare, not barren or dead, just bare and naked. They look like they’re waiting for someone to wrap a bright, colourful scarf around their trunks and limbs or thread lights around their branches. Except really, they’ve gone inside. Their energy has withdrawn to do the quiet work. They’ve gone in to sleep and protect themselves from the cold and wind, from the elements, and wait for the whispers – the whispers of spring to call forth their rebirth and new growth.

And during this drab grey of winter, we human beings are entrusted to find our patience. We will ourselves to find beauty, warmth, creativity and lightness from within while we wait for the trees to blossom and engulf us with their gifts. Indoors, with others, in comfy clothes or sitting by a fireplace, snuggled up in blankets, wool socks and slippers, having heated conversations, holding hands and sharing big bear hugs.

Like the weathering transition, this is where I find myself too, going inside to do my own quiet work and listening for the whispers as I transition my blogging voice and branch out into more creative and powerful ways of expressing my ideas and myself. I will be publishing intermittent blog posts and in the meantime, would love your feedback and thoughts about any of the following questions:

- What do you come back to my blog for?

- What do you want more of or what do you want me to write about?

- What was your favourite post?

- What was an insight that was useful or that was carried into your life?

- What questions do you have about career, retirement, health or life transitions?

Looking forward to your comments, ideas and suggestions…

Sylvia Laale’s Thoughts on Aging, Death + Dying: Interview 14/100

Sylvia Laale is a daughter, sister, wife, mother, divorcee, lover, consultant, mother-in-law, grandmother, teacher, visionary, life coach, healer, wise woman, elder and fully alive human being.

Sylvia Laale

RT: When you think about aging and getting older in general terms, what does it mean to you?

SL: I didn’t think of it as a negative thing until I experienced it.

RT: When did that happen?

SL: I’m 67 now so I’d say maybe 3 or 4 years ago.

RT: What happened then that you noticed it?

SL:  I noticed that I had the same energetic will but was forcing my capacity to demonstrate it. I still had energy but I knew that while I had done a great deal, I was exhausted.  And I remembered being a single mother of 3 children, making sure they got to all their activities, having a full-time job, having a social life of my own and not finding that necessarily exhausting.

I’d recognized that something significant had shifted. I also experienced losing a thought, not being able to remember a word or name or finding myself at the top of the stairs and wondering why I had come up here. I did not love that experience.

RT: You sound very comfortable sharing your age. Have you always been comfortable talking about your age?

SL: No, when I was a kid I was not because my birthday falls on December 31st so I was always the youngest in the class or group—it became a social problem for me. And we have a very age-conscious society.

RT: It’s so interesting that you noticed it as a youngster…

SL: I’m not sure that I consciously made that connection, but I was always identified as the youngest. And I was a bit behind socially. I had no problem with learning but if I’d been older I might have been better off from a social context, therefore from an emotional and psychological context, because I appeared not to ‘fit’.

So I always had a sense of not belonging because I was young; I looked forward to getting older. Now I’m often among the oldest in the room.

RT: And what’s that like for you?

SL: It’s irrelevant to me. It seems to affect other people …

RT: How does it affect others? What do you notice?

SL: I work in the public and private sectors as a consultant. I do organizational development, facilitation, conflict resolution and coaching. In the workplace, there are now 3 generations with the boomers retiring out. There are a lot of young people, perhaps 20-30 years younger than me. There are obvious generational differences. And very often, they react to it. Sometimes I’ll notice it because at 47 you can’t know what you know at 67. This is impossible. There are times when I have to remind myself that the stuff they don’t seem to know–is really because they can’t yet know it.

RT: They can’t know it yet because they haven’t lived it.

SL: Exactly. If I’m working with much younger folks, the young men have a tendency to not ‘see’ an older woman, it’s like she doesn’t exist. But I think that we’re also role-based, we see people in roles, and in the workplace they tend to see me in “the Mummy” role.

RT: In the Mother role?

SL: Yes, and I find that disrespectful so I deal with it directly.

RT: So when you think of what is “old”, what comes to mind for you?

SL: For me “old” is a mindset. I have a number attached to the several years that I’ve been here in this incarnation. But I know people who are much younger than me who are much older in their approach to life.

RT: How so?

SL: They have a tendency to be very stuck in a way of being, set in their ways, very sure that they are right. I feel a lot of that among older folks—not much openness to difference and possibilities; sedentary, a willingness to sit around and do little; self-absorbed—convinced they are entitled to a certain way of life, a certain level of comfort and personal enjoyment.

RT: What did you learn about aging from your parents and your family?

SL: I’m not exactly sure that I saw my parents aging – my father died when he was 57, my mother died at 69. My parents were 35+ when they met, married and had children. They were 10 or 15 years older than my friends’ parents. My dad was a physical education director at a community centre so I saw him as very active and I saw my mother as old, overweight and unfashionable. I couldn’t learn about being feminine and attractive from her. I had to learn those things on my own and that’s hard for a girl to do.

RT: You speak about your mother’s physical appearance when you speak about her aging and that younger men don’t notice women above a certain age…

SL: I think our society has a tendency to view the older woman as invisible. So an attractive older woman is not a concept we have in our culture. In France, the women are considered attractive at all ages. They dress and put on their make-up and men look at them and admire them. Men don’t find it odd to look at a woman twice their age and see an attractive female. In our society, they’re stunned and they’re also stunned if you refuse to play the role of old lady or ‘Mummy’.

So to establish yourself as a fully equal person with much to offer in any situation, you have to work at that in our society.

RT: Is there anyone you can think of who was a positive role model for you around aging?

SL: No, I found my own model. I mean people like Jane Goodall, and there’s Maria Gomori who teaches the (Virginia) Satir model and is 92-years old. She travels to China several times a year for work….

RT: How inspiring!

SL: Isn’t that exciting?! And she’s very attractive—beautiful like a 92-year old who’s taken care of herself, still finds joy and pleasure in life and fully engaged in the world. So these would be models for whom age is not an issue.

I also have a friend who is 90 and madly in love with her husband. It’s lovely to watch the two of them. If one of them is out of the room and walks in, both of their faces light up when they see each other.

RT: Oh, wow.

SL: So I have a few models for aging but I discovered my own because you only have to look around you and go into seniors homes, talk to friends of the same age whose parents are still alive to know that the aging process, the way we handle it in our society, is not pretty.

RT: So what is the model you have created for yourself?

SL: One of the things I did quite early on was I determined that I was going to have a purpose and an intention to contribute and participate in the world to take me through to the end of life. So I’m not withdrawing from life because I’m 65, not going to play golf or spend half my year in Florida.

The way my life unfolded and the things that happened to me in terms of my financial situation and the choices I made, such as, when I left my ex-husband in order not to fight over the children, I didn’t ask for anything from him that was material. I left with no money, no stuff. But I had my three kids.

RT: So that was a huge decision you made about what your priorities were and what your values were at that time…

SL: And at 40, I assumed I’d meet a man and we’d work together and everything would be fine or I’d work with my company and retire with my little pension and I’d be fine. None of those things happened because life doesn’t always turn out as the Hollywood version portrays life.

I now have to work because the company I was with collapsed when I was 56 and I didn’t get a full pension. Plus benefits disappeared. When you don’t have the benefits, what you decide is health is a state of mind and there isn’t an option to be sick.

Then I looked at the medical profession and how their response to anything which involves aging is often to prescribe drugs. Drugs deplete the body and that’s very hard to recover from so my choice has been to go the alternative route, I pay for it because OHIP (Ontario health insurance program) won’t cover anything alternative.

Aging is not fun and not for the faint of heart.

RT: How is it not fun? Why is it not for the faint of heart?

SL: I think you have to start when you’re young, to take care of yourself or you’ll pay when you get older. For women, the aging process is a little easier to talk about because there’s a clear demarcation line when her periods stop; you have no more hormones, and that’s the point at which you begin to feel different. It’s really nice not to have periods, nobody’s going to complain about that piece. But the down side is you also don’t have hormones.

The hormones you have in your 20s and 30s mean that you don’t get the diseases of aging. I don’t know how directly related they are but there has to be some relationship because you don’t hear of a 30-year old who has Alzheimer’s. Very few 30-year olds have Parkinson’s. What I see is an almost-epidemic of older people with a combination of Parkinson’s and dementia. It’s horrible. I don’t want to be that way.

RT: As you talk about aging and dying, you’re talking very much about the relationship between health and aging?

SL: Vitality and aging. I want the same vitality when I’m 90 as I had when I was 40.

RT: How does your vitality, or health, impact you?

SL: Well, I’m very fortunate. I have a body that gives me a lot of feedback so I’ve always paid a lot of attention to my body. I started modifying my diet when I was in my early 20s and when I had children, I wanted them to have a healthier life, to be healthier than my family. By the time I was in my early 30s, I had lost about 14 members of my family and extended family, and that included both of my parents.

So death was the theme of my childhood, not of my older years.

RT: What were, and are, your thoughts on death and dying?

SL: So much of how you learn about death, depends on how people around you behave. For me, death is terrifying. Everybody I know who died, suffered a horrible death – cancer, heart disease – those are the two big ones in my family. Those deaths were ugly and horrible, took a long time and everybody suffered. And we did not know as a family how to grieve and how to help each other, especially how to help the children.

So the people who suffered the most were us children. I’ve spent much time personally dealing with these issues because they affect how you engage with life. A lot of my personal growth work has been around dealing with the stuck places along the grieving process, dealing with my fear of death. I have more fear of aging than I do of dying.

I don’t like what I see around me and I don’t want it for me. I don’t like the medical model of aging. I don’t like the way they approach it. Nobody is allowed to say to me, “At your age you should be doing this or that….”

RT: The ageism?

SL: Yes. And I also don’t like the model that somehow I’m “less-than” because I’m “older than”. I don’t see the medical profession as being the expert in MY aging. They may have expertise in how you apply medical treatments to certain issues. But I’m the expert of this body.

RT: When you say that you fear aging more than dying, are you also referring to the illnesses of aging?

SL: The illnesses and the effects of aging, the mental and emotional effects. I found I was becoming fearful of doing things I used to do all the time.

RT: What kinds of things?

SL: Going to the movies alone; going out in the evenings by myself. Going out on a day where my sidewalk is icy or it’s snowy. I started to restrict my life and I realized that I needed a very different model or else I’d end up exactly where I didn’t want to be.

Also in my early 60s my doctor would start saying, ‘You should take a little Lipitor. You have no cholesterol problem, just as a preventative measure.’ ‘You should take a little bone medicine.’ I kept saying to her if I’m taking all these medications, what about the interactions between them? Oh we deal with that with other medicines.

I said, No! That isn’t what I’m doing. So I need an alternative to this…

RT: And what’s the alternative that you found, that’s been working for you?

SL: I began to explore bio-identical hormones. I read Suzanne Somer’s books, I searched on the internet, I googled everything. And I was very fortunate – there’s a doctor here who is very knowledgable and got herself trained in the US in anti-aging medicine. I’ve been working with her and am on bio-identical hormones now and it’s made a huge difference for me.

RT: It sounds also like you’re working with another model or approach to health than the medical model.

SL: I’m very clear that I’m in charge of my life because I’m the one who gets to live with the consequences of decisions I make, not anybody else. I don’t allow a doctor or nurse to talk to me as though I am a patient; it’s a passive relationship with a medical professional. I’m a client therefore I decide. The medical profession doesn’t particularly like this approach and my GP wants me to sign a piece of paper that says she’s told me what she wants me to do and I’ve chosen not to do it, so that she’s not at fault. And I’m fine with doing that but I think it’s pathetic.

I have chosen not to use medications as much as possible and generally I won’t consider surgery. I take full responsibility for my health, I’m informed. I use food, supplements and alternative healing methodologies to manage health, vitality and growing older.

I stay very active, that’s the other thing. Most mornings, I have a little 10-minute routine that uses all the joints and muscles in the body that gets them warmed up. It energizes me and gets rid of all the fuzz.

RT: The brain fuzz?

SL: Body fuzz! You know the stiffness, aches and pains….

RT: There’s so many different kinds of fuzz, I don’t know…

SL: Yes, there certainly is!

I Zumba 3 times a week. I walk long distances. Last night I was out for 1½ hours in the fresh, cold winter weather. I hike, swim, cross-country ski. I stay very active and in combination with a careful diet, I’m managing my health in a way that works for my body. I’m always clear that I’m fully in charge. I don’t give that responsibility away to anybody.

RT: What have been the best things for you about aging or getting older? What have you gained through your years of living?

SL: I have the wisdom to know that I have no advice to give to anybody. I have experiences and I’ve done some things that worked for me. I can’t tell you that they’ll work for you. My process and the approach I use might work for you. So I never give advice. I give opinions. I believe we are completely at choice.

There is a wisdom that comes with growing older – I’d love to have the energy of 30 with the wisdom of 67. If I had to choose between 30 and 67, I want the wisdom because life is a whole lot less painful, and you have the perspective of looking back at yourself with compassion, understanding and appreciation for all that you’ve overcome and created and the ‘you’ that you have become.

But when you’re 30, you can’t look forward and see what you will become.

You also know at this stage that everything is process, nothing is static. We are always in flow, always moving. When we don’t fight the flow, it goes better. When we fight the flow, it’s usually not a lot of fun! Don’t fight the flow.

Trust your own intuition and act on it, that’s another thing I’ve learned. If something, for example a job opportunity, doesn’t feel right in my gut, I take time to process it over a day or two and figure out why before I make a decision. I listen to my intuition.

There’s one more piece that I learned from this 92-year old woman (Maria Gomori). When asked how she stayed so vital and alive after 92 years and had so much energy, she said the key to living a full life for all your years is being congruent with yourself. Tell yourself the truth. So that’s what I try to do. And it isn’t always easy.

When I give myself enough time to come to terms with the fact that I’m just fully human and that I can’t undertake fixing the universe but maybe I can help the guys down at the Mission have a good Easter Sunday dinner. I don’t bafflegab myself with the need to be heroic. I just try to live a congruent life, a life that is congruent with my values and purpose and intention. I do this moment by moment.

RT: Those are brilliant pieces of wisdom!

SL: Anyone can have this provided you spend time becoming self-aware and spiritually aware.

RT: What have been the harder things about getting older?

SL: Part of the harder piece is being alone. Being alone is not something we’re good at. We’re conditioned to be in a relationship with a partner. We’re trained to be part of a large social network. This requires a lot of conforming and I’ve chosen not to conform to that norm.

As a result what I find is I’ve spent the last 4-5 years getting as comfortable as I can get with being on my own. Now even when I’m lonely and alone, I’m fine. And most of the time, when I’m alone I love the company I keep.

RT: You love your own company.

SL: I find myself very interesting and amusing! And entertaining!

RT: Have you experienced ageism or age-related stigma personally?

SL: I think it’s implicit in our culture. We’re a youth culture.

RT: Has that always been the way?

SL: I think when I was a kid it was not a youth culture. It was an adult culture. Now we’re a youth culture. I’m not sure it’s good for anybody.I prefer the indigenous cultures that value every stage of life. I don’t think any one stage should be ignored or disrespected.

RT: Can you give an example of what you mean?

SL: The way the medical professionals deal with the older folks is extremely disrespectful…I do not enable this behavior when I engage with doctors and nurses.

RT: It’s amazing to hear how you came to this on your own, that without having your parents’ as a model of aging, that you’ve taken all this in and created your own model that you’re now inspiring your children and grandchildren with…

SL: Yes, and anyone else I come into contact with…

RT: Yes!

SL: The only piece of advice I could give anybody who’s younger is to take care of the body you’re here in. Your body is designed to eat good quality food in small amounts. It also demands to move. It’s not designed to sit in front of a computer eight hours a day. And work at becoming self-aware, be “growthful” all your life.

RT: When you were talking about your perspective and experience with ageism, what do you think will address it or decrease it?

SL: If I want to change that, then I have to be the change I wish to see.

RT: Oh, is that what that means!

SL: Right! I deal with disrespectful behaviour up-front. And I deal with it anytime, anywhere—with firmness and compassion. I speak my truth to everyone…that is the best I have to give the world and there is no value to anyone in my not speaking my truth.

Fundamentally I no long invest energy in worrying what others think of me. The earlier you learn this, the better – not everybody is going to like you. You have to like yourself.

RT: Now that you’re in this so-called stage of “retirement”, have you noticed that there’s a transition happening for you at this time in your life?

SL: I have the same drive and motivation that I’ve always had but I’m unwilling to make myself uncomfortable to meet somebody else’s needs or wants. In my life I’m now in my 6th and exploring my 7th career, and I’ll be doing different kind of work. I’m taking everything I’ve learned, moving it into a private practice to do a blend of holistic coaching and healing.

RT: So when you think of retirement, what does it mean to you?

SL: It means nothing to me. I do not understand the word. I think it’s a false thing we’ve created. We found that we were being unfair to 65-year olds by asking them to do hard, physical labour. But our work these days is not hard, physical labour. I think that retirement is not necessarily a good thing for society and it’s becoming clearer that we cannot fund the boomers through retirement, old age and dying. It’s not sustainable.

Many boomers find they can’t live on their retirement pensions and are going back to work or that they’re bored to tears.

I don’t think I could ever “retire” in the way many people do. I don’t think of ‘retirement’ very often.

RT: You were saying that you’re setting up a private practice of coaching and healing. Is there anything else you’d say is your work now?

SL: Well I have a responsibility to model a different, more respectful and healthy approach to growing older for my children and grandchildren and I take that responsibility quite seriously. I speak publicly about what I’m doing and I write about it as well…I will share my learnings and my process with anyone who is curious and open.

RT: So that’s the role you play as a grandmother?

SL: My role is to love my grandchildren unconditionally and provide options to the guidance of her parents. For example, I have a 3-year old granddaughter and she loves to whine to get her own way. So she and I are practicing negotiation. She’ll whine at me about something and I’ll say, “That’s not going to work.”

And she’ll say, “But I waaaant iiiit.”

So I’ll say, “Sorry,that isn’t going to work with me. Would you like to negotiate?”

She’ll look at me and say, “Yes!”

So I teach her how to negotiate. And it’s not as though she gets her way when she negotiates. She gets more of her way, because it’s a two-way street.

There’s that kind of work and then there’s lots that needs to be done in the world that I’m pretty good at doing, so I will do it.

RT: What have been the most challenging transitions for you?

SL: One was when I left my ex and I divorced. I took no money, no property, I only took the kids so that we didn’t have to fight. Maybe that was a financially dumb decision but my children were fine.

I found that when my last child left home, left the city and moved out of the province, that was a very hard transition. That took a long time to adjust to.

And then when I lost my job with the company, what I discovered was it’s very easy to see yourself successful in a role but it’s much more meaningful and useful to be successful just for who you are as a person. I really suffered when I lost my job because I had an important role in this work community that disappeared. So that was very hard, I actually had an emotional crash at that time.

RT: What helped you get through those transitions?

SL: Lots of different things: really good therapy and counselling, personal growth and development programs, a few very good friends. I’m prone to depression, so I did take anti-depressant medication for a couple of years which worked for me and I got off them. Discovering my own inner resources, that was pretty spectacular.

What I learned from these transitions is that there isn’t much I can’t get through and that there are a lot of resources. There’s a lot of wisdom available if you’re searching.

RT: Looking back now, what was the best risk you took in your life?

SL: From here looking back, nothing looks like a risk. It’s hard to look back and see anything as a risk. Right now I’m taking a bit of a risk because I’m turning away work and I don’t have the money to do this. I will continue to do so because it appears to be the right thing to do.

RT: How can you tell that? How do you know?

SL: It feels right, deep in my body. I have a physiological response…my body speaks to me. I have learned to listen to these messages from the body and pay attention.

RT: I’m going to turn us back to the conversation we had started earlier about aging and dying. Let’s start with this question: which do you fear more, death or dying?

SL: One is process, one is outcome, so I don’t see them as being different. We’re dying from the minute we’re born and I think we’re raised to fear dying.

I’m after quality of life; longevity without quality of life does not interest me. It is what our scientists and medical profession seems to be aiming towards with all the research that they do.

RT: On longevity?

SL: Yes, it’s all about longevity, having more life. I don’t want more life unless I have quality of life.

RT: And when you see yourself approaching death, how would you like to die?

SL: I like our Northern First Nations and their ancient ways of dying. When I know I’m near death, I go out and lie down in the snow. That’s the way I want to die. Not necessarily in the snow, sand would be nice! I’d like to die quietly, peacefully, without pain and without machinery–without drugs. If that could be arranged, that would be lovely. I don’t want to die in pain. I’m not big on pain.

RT: And peacefully, and in a space that’s beautiful…

SL: Yes, play me Mendelsohn’s Violin Concerto, surround me with sunlight and warmth, warm air, take me to a mountain top so I can smell the junipers.

RT: You’ve said that you’ve experienced many deaths in your life. Whose death do you fear most now? Do you fear your own or someone close to you?

SL: I do not want the experience of losing my children or grandchildren. I don’t want to be a part of losing children, anybody’s children. It’s unnatural…

RT: What’s it like for you to talk about aging, and death and dying?

SL: It’s my job to experience this latter part of life my way and then communicate what I’ve done, why I’ve done it, how I’ve done it and what’s the outcome for me so that people can make better, informed choices. I’ve actually documented my journey with bio-identical hormones and published it, and I talk about it with anybody who’s interested. I’m not interested in convincing people what to do or how to do it; I’m interested in people getting informed.

RT: And that’s part of what your work is now?

SL: That’s right. So when I advertise myself, one of the things I coach on is anti-aging

RT: Thanks for sharing your wisdom! Is there anything else you want to add, comment on or share?

SL: I think we don’t talk about all the aspects of aging enough and I don’t think older people talk about how unpleasant the aging process is because we have some negative sanctions in our culture about talking about that.

So I see it as my purpose to do my part…experience getting older and sharing what I learn with others…hopefully I can make a difference.

Clearing Your Way for an AWEsome New Year

This past week, I had lunch with a dear friend who, in addition to being an executive leader, has a discreet talent of offering “what’s in store for you” readings that have become so popular she’s often deluged at parties, long line-ups of eager folks waiting to hear what will unfold for them in the new year. Here are some other self-starter, DIY strategies that will clear your way to welcome Awe, Peace, and Possibility in the New Year.

Clearing Your Energy. How is your mental and physical energy? Do you feel light, energized and positive? Clearing your physical, emotional, spiritual and mental energies brings out your best self, and that feels AWEsome. Connect to what your mind, body and spirit are wanting and asking of you. Jim Loehr’s book “The Power of Full Engagement” explores the ebb and flow of our various energies and suggests ways to restore our sense of balance and wellness.

Letting Go. The new year is an opportune time to consider what lightens us or weighs us down. Notice which relationships, events, things, tasks, perspectives, approaches, routines, rituals, habits or anything else feel heavy or burdensome rather than life-giving and energizing. “Glad No Matter What: Transforming Loss and Change into Gift and Opportunity” by the creative SARK offers thoughtful words and strategies for letting go, especially the tough ones. Deciding what you will keep, change and toss is powerful, enLIGHTening and AWEsome.

Clearing Your Space. One of the best books I’ve come across that inspired me into action is Gail Blanke’s “Throw Out Fifty Things”. Her approach to clearing physical and mental clutter had me tossing and organizing my space in no time. Binders, books, papers and texts have been donated, shredded, recycled or reused. I’ve released the last layers of my former profession and committed to my current career. Aligning what is in our physical environment with our values and what we want for ourselves can only be AWEsome.

Evaluating Your Whole Life. What’s your level of satisfaction with each part of your life – your health, relationships with family and friends, career, finances? Great? So-so? Sucks? Is something rating 7 or 2 out of 10? Getting clear about your level of satisfaction helps…it helps to get clear about what you are choosing, and what you are not choosing. There’s a freedom that comes with taking responsibility for the choices we make. And that will bring you more moments of AWE.

Re-assessing goals & dreams. What needs tweaking, swirling and dippity-doing?  Which of your goals and dreams need tossing out? Which ones still excite and thrill you or need to be re-worked to keep moving you forward? Just in time for the New Year, the 121-Dreams Starter Kit is a beautiful resource to help you get clear about your dreams today. Re-connecting to your dreams and goals can help change aw-ful to awe-some.

Jane C’s Thoughts on Aging, Death and Dying: Interview no. 13/100

Introducing Jane C. – 65-year old enthusiastic and ever-curious participant in life with all its ups and downs!

RT: What are your thoughts about aging and getting older? What does the term old mean to you?

Jane C: I think because my mother was never an overly vain woman, and I compare this to other women I know where the mother was quite concerned. My mom felt there was nothing to be worried about in getting older; in fact she used to joke about it, i.e. “your poor old Mother” etc. My mom was very easy-going about getting older. It didn’t bother her, she wasn’t ultra-concerned about it. If her hair went white, it went white. She did the best she could. She was an energetic woman, is an energetic woman, and has always been busy so there wasn’t an issue.

But I noticed, even as early as 45 years old, that I was strongly considering plastic surgery because I thought, Gasp! I’m getting that double chin! Ooh! My looks had been very important to me. I was quite an overweight young girl and then I lost a lot of weight and was thrilled with the attention that that gave me and I worked very hard to keep it.

As the years went on, I really wanted to keep that…after that stint of wanting plastic surgery, I just gave up on that idea and thought that is just way too much money for it. I’m not willing to undergo it. I’ve tried to do the best I can with everything.

Now that I’m into my sixties, and certainly more recently, I’ve noticed that my energy level is lower than it used to be and that was surprising. I noticed it mostly with housework. I would always work four or five days a week, no problem getting things done, just whisking into a good (housework) session and I became less willing to do this…I noticed it and that little bit of an energy shift bothered me. I’ve worked out since I was 30, I eat properly and try to maintain a level of good health so I’m not really concerned about it.

But when I see older people in society and what becomes of a lot of them – they look very bent-over and their walking and mobility is more laboured, I wonder if that happens to all of us. I think maybe that won’t happen to me because I’m healthy, but none of us knows, anything can happen. It’s sad, when I see older people. I try to remember to myself, “You know, you’re going to be there someday”. It’s strange to see the way a face ages and wrinkles, the lines and how they look older. Yeah, there’s a sort-of, “Oh, I don’t want to be like that” feeling. I find some older people just don’t look happy, they seem down or don’t look people in the eye, so maybe there is a depression that comes with it. I can only hope that with the attitudes I’ve developed that it won’t impact me as much, that I’ll have good friends and ways to deal with it.

RT: You’ve spoken about old in terms of attractiveness or rather, the loss of being attractive and the loss of being seen as beautiful in the eyes of others, as well as the loss of vitality or energy. Is there anything else you’ve noticed or want to add?

Jane C: Well, if they’re upright and walking along, I’m happy for them. I feel a bit guilty for some reason, like the guilt of the survivor, if I see them looking somewhat pained or hunched over, or if they look unhappy. I feel bad for them.

RT: Yes, the frailty…

Jane C: The frailty. That’s it. And I feel that they know. It’s like when I walk past a group of young girls and they don’t pay a minute of attention to me, they’re in their own world. And that’s probably what the older folks feel, that “life’s passing me by”. I think that comes from the choices that you make years before, I do believe that. So I’m not as worried about it for myself.

RT: You speak very comfortably about your own age and you mentioned that there was a period around 45 when you were conscious of your age. Have there been other times or events in your life that have made you aware of your age?

Jane C: Yes, I had a sponsee who was about 8-9 years younger than me. She was blonde and petite, so opposite to me. We were very close friends for ten years but I felt very conscious that I was older. It was more what I looked like too. I didn’t think I looked as cute as she was because of her tiny, blonde looks and the guys seemed to really like that.

Sometimes I’m conscious of my age at my office. They’re all somewhere in their 30s and 40s, and sometimes I feel a bit nutty but I like being the nutty, older one. I’ll say, “it’s because I’m a crazy, old broad!” and I think that’s ridiculous because I don’t believe that, I just do it to get a laugh out of people.

RT: Is there any connection for you between the notion of old and someone’s age?

Jane C: Hmm, these questions are really making me think! It’s more about what you look like and to me, if the skin is frail, if the face is sad-looking with a lot of wrinkles, if they’re bent over…that to me looks old. I don’t always put an age to it.

RT: So there’s an image of what old is to you, more than an age…

Jane C: Yes. I don’t think of it in terms of an age. I don’t think, “Oh, she must be 90” or “She’s well on her way to 100”. I don’t think of it in terms of numbers.

RT: You mentioned before about your mom and her attitude and approach to aging. Is there anything else you’ve learned from your parents about growing older or aging?

Jane C: My dad died at 50, many years ago. My mother just loved to have that energy and unfortunately about 4 or 5 years ago, she fell, broke and dislocated her shoulder and has never been the same. It’s because she didn’t do the physiotherapy, it was probably very painful. I know because I went through physio for my knee. So now she’s appearing old. My sisters are very concerned about it. I’m feel impatient with her because I know she could have improved more with physio, but she doesn’t have the knowledge or program I have, I’m not trying to sound superior, so I have to really accept that this is where she is at, she’s frail.

Now we have to look after her to a degree which bothers me because I didn’t feel like I had a lot of looking after…she was too miserable in her own life, in her marriage. There wasn’t a lot of happiness at home. I’m so grateful that I found some from my 30s on.

RT: So what about other influences like media, culture, your religion, culture, peers? Has anything or anyone else been influential for you or influenced your ideas about aging or getting older?

Jane C: Well, I did have one friend who never wanted anyone to know her age, and an older friend at church said to me as I was turning 60, “Don’t tell anybody! It’s part of your womanly charm. Never let them know.” But she was sweet about it, and she’s of an older generation.

I know the media is youth-hungry but I’ve gotten over that. Probably I went through more angst about it when I was between 45 and 55, when I was seeing it really happen. For me, it all had to do with attractiveness, being pretty and whether I could attract the opposite sex.

RT: What have been the best things for you about getting older?

Jane C: Well, I think it’s that I continue to try to grow and that I grow emotionally and spiritually. I want to stay positive. But I can’t say that it’s because the number of years I’ve lived, it’s the (personal growth) work that I’ve done in the years to really know who I am and know that yes, I really want to do that or no, I don’t want to do that.

There is also the wisdom that comes with aging. Even if you don’t do the inner work on yourself, you do get to know what you want to do and what you don’t want to do, your likes and dislikes. You learn how to step away from situations without anger and know what’s not for you, letting it go at that.

RT: What have been the harder things for you about getting older?

Jane C: Seeing the changes in your body, not only the “softening jaw line” as my friend used to call it, but the upper arms, the flab, that kind of thing. But I never was a “Baywatch” girl. Still, it takes longer to work off stuff. I try not to let it get me. I don’t want to be alone and old but I don’t think I will be. I don’t have to change a lot about my lifestyle. I believe that things will come up when they’re supposed to.

RT: How, if at all, has your career or work been effected by your age or aging?

Jane C: Well I have to say that it really hasn’t because I’ve been lucky to be in high-tech since the early 80s. I got to know people and, although I’m not technical in the least, I picked up a certain amount and am part of the industry. I know people and can always get a job. I’ve been lucky that way and I know that what I do is something that people really value. They don’t want to do it themselves since it’s a kind of prospecting and I’m good at it. I’ve heard my boss say, “Oh, we don’t ever want you to retire!” So it’s just a great feeling.

RT: Have you ever experienced ageism or age-related stigma at work or outside of work?

Jane C: When I was a placement consultant, they call it recruiters now, for 14 years, I didn’t experience it myself but I remember marketing a secretary who was 42 years old to a company and the guy said to me, “Oh, she’ll be set in her ways.” And I thought, “You animal!” We got this all the time, it was during the mid-70s when you could ask someone their age. They used to have male and female job postings in the newspaper well before there was anything online. There was also a tremendous amount of racism too. It was ridiculous. I’m sure it still goes on. I feel fortunate to be who I am because I read in the employment papers about these men who are in their mid-50s and they’ve been in middle-to-upper management positions and are out of work. I feel really badly for them, that has to be very, very difficult. So you have to feel lucky if you’ve found a little perch.

Where I am is age-proof and I make sure that I stay up to the mark, that I’m quick to answer my emails. It’s great because it’s keeping me younger and keeps my mind going. But I have seen ageism in the workplace, it definitely happens.

RT: What does the concept of retirement mean to you? And do you want to retire? What do you want it to be?

Jane C: Well, I never really thought about it before. I guess everyone thinks it would be wonderful to have lots of money and be on a beach or something like that Freedom 55. I don’t think I ever thought of it back then. I got a kick out of going to work and that kept me going.

Now as I got older, I thought, I wonder if I will retire? I don’t really think I do. I even said to my boss that I would work three days a week because I’m getting my pensions and then I thought that I’d like to have some extra money so I’m going to stay at four days a week.

Since I’ve been feeling better lately and more uplifted, it’s going okay. But I’m not sure if I’m grieving or even close to grieving because I don’t think I’m ready to re-invent myself after retirement, I’m not retiring. I don’t really want to stay home. I now have some idea that if I found something that I really loved, then maybe I’d be happy to make less money and do that. But I’m not ready to retire, no, not from what I do. I enjoy it and I know it’s important for me to be with people and not sit at home and watch TV. That would be pretty bad.

RT: When you imagine finding something that would be compelling enough that you would consider not working, that thing that is meaningful and purposeful for you, what ideas do you have about that? What kind of thing(s) would motivate you?

Jane C: Well it’s all about, and this is a mark of age too because you’d never think this way in your 20s, but it would be with helping people. Being somewhere where you’re giving people support. I’d want to motivate people like helping at a social service agency, maybe one specializing in helping people with addictions, or that helps people get jobs. I’d be ideal at that because I did it before, call all types of companies to find out what they’re looking for and matching them up with clients. I’d want to work with people whom I can help.

RT: What was the most challenging transition in your life and what helped you get through it?

Jane C: The transition of leaving the employment agency in 1982 because I thought I just couldn’t do it anymore for some of the reasons I’d mentioned before. I’d been sober five years and things started opening up. That was difficult. I took the summer off. I did some career exploration, reading books like “What Color is Your Parachute?” and the “Three Boxes of Life” and I found out that one thing that I’d like to do is to teach. So I made the decision to go back to university, because I only had first year, get my Bachelor of Arts and then go to teacher’s college.

I went back two years part-time and by then I realized there’s nothing so magical for me about being in University, I wasn’t sure if I want to do this for another number of years and I thought I was ready to get back into business. I had just been so burned out from business.

So the transition of leaving that job and not really knowing what I was going to do was pretty wild. I remember re-doing my resume, looking at it and thinking, “I don’t know what else I would do.” I didn’t know about transferable skills then. I’d been at that job since I a young woman and had done well but that’s all I’d done.

Then I found out that what I really wanted to do was be a singer. I did that part-time and again, I discovered that it was not the dream I’d thought it would be.

RT: It was such a time of exploration for you.

Jane C: Yeah. I was trying all kinds of things. It was good. It was good to do that and to take singing lessons and really try, then beat myself up because I didn’t stay with it. But had I wanted to stay with it, I would have stayed with it. It just wasn’t for me. If I could have shot right to the top and made a million dollars in my first six weeks, sure!

RT: How did you figure that out? What helped you figure these pieces out and this career transition?

Jane C: I called my friend who is like a business mentor, he got me into the telemarketing company, and he gave me great advice.

RT: You have a great network.

Jane C: Well it’s AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). My business mentor was in AA. My network is also from being in placement – you’re just used to talking with people all the time and I guess it’s my nature.

RT: What do you know or appreciate today that you didn’t know when you were a young or middle-aged adult?

Jane C: I appreciate peace of mind. Through my time in AA and after I quit smoking, I thought it’s so nice not to have that squirrely mind, to be calm and take the next step, do the next right thing. But I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants, I didn’t do any of this by myself. An  awful lot of this was through the wisdom in the rooms (of AA). It’s a fantastic program. It’s not just that you stop drinking. It’s that you really grow if you work at it. And I guess I really needed to because I was a very unhappy person.

RT: You’ve been talking about health…so what’s been your experience with it? What’s the impact or connection for you of health and age or aging?

Jane C: Well I think it’s a huge impact. And mentally healthy too, not worrying too much.

RT: So how does your health impact you?

Jane C: Well I mean it’s everything. It’s how I feel about work, my friends. I have to stay healthy otherwise I’m not going to feel good. And I hate feeling bad. I can go into a real downer when I start not feeling well. It’s just not good for my mental health. I start feeling very depressed and it can happen quickly so I’m careful with myself.

RT: What are your thoughts broadly on death and dying?

Jane C: It’s the biggest mystery in the world to me. I hate to hear about a terrible accidental death or about a murder or something that’s very untoward, for the survivors, it’s horrible, a horrible situation, that type of violence.

But I do believe there’s something after, I want to believe that. I’ve read all the Deepak Chopra books, and the Christian faith does say that too. So it doesn’t really bother me. Now maybe I’m in denial but it doesn’t bother me when someone dies. Maybe it’s because it hasn’t been close to me but they say it’s just another transition.

RT: Which do you fear more – death or dying?

Jane C: Yeah, it depends on…pain. I don’t know, I find it mystifying. I know that in some of the Eastern religions, you remind yourself, “I’m going to die” and say that during the day. It seems so odd, just reminding yourself you’re going to die. It’s so weird to know that…how do you get a handle on that? And some religions believe that when this is it, that’s it. So nobody knows.

I’ve read all about the near-death experiences and that comforts me. The religion I’m involved with now believes that the person, the consciousness is still there and that is kind of how I feel about it. I think that Deepak Chopra says that too – that consciousness is not local, it’s all over. That comforts me but I have no idea and I guess I don’t think about it much. I don’t want to…it sure is interesting though.

RT: Is there a difference for you, or do you fear your own death more or that of someone close to you?

Jane C: Oh, my own. Oh, yeah. The fear…I mean when you’re lying on that bed and taking the last few breaths, it might be scary. I don’t know. I don’t want to feel that I have to feel that way. Yeah, it’s a strange thing.

RT: How would you like to die?

Jane C: Probably very peacefully, in bed after an illness I guess…or just see the final breaths go. Sure, just peacefully.

RT: What’s it like to be talking about aging, dying and death? Do you have any feelings about it, about having this conversation?

Jane C: The aging one, I can tell that I’m not too concerned about it, I know it’s going to happen. I’m going to be careful of myself.

But the death and dying conversation really does bring up a lot of thoughts. The religion I’m in does offer clarity about immortality and I like that. Probably not going to think, think, think about it, only going to see it as something to be fascinated by than overwhelmed by what will happen.

In one of Scott Peck’s books there’s a story of what happens after you die and how you have to learn how to move around without a body, you have to learn to get the consciousness and some people are still learning on one level and they have to learn more before they move on.

RT: If you were to share a piece of advice about the experience of aging and about getting to where you are today with people who are younger than you, what would it be?

Jane C: I think it’s very important to have a faith in something greater than yourself, call it what you will – the life force, the collective humanity. I think you have to connect with other people. I was a very self-centered young woman and all I cared about was how I looked and how much money I was going to make, but I was very upset inside and of course I loved to drink. I know that isolation of spirit is a killer and I would think you have to reach out and love.

If you don’t love, your life will fly by you. You have to love something other than yourself. When I was a young woman, I was self-involved, apathetic, had no goals. Love is the answer. It really is, love is the answer.

I think what’s become evident to me is that my alcoholism helped get me into this program and these 12steps are helpful for anyone, anyone can use them for living, because we’re all powerless over something.

The unexamined life is not worth living. Don’t try to fill that hole with another pair of shoes. Take a look at what’s really going on, and get therapy if you need it.

“Our Thoughts on Aging” Interview Project: An Update

It’s been more than a year of interviews and I wanted to share some points of interest that I’ve noticed and hope will be of interest to you too!

Here are 5 that I’ve come away with thus far:

1. Almost immediately I began to notice that when I asked what influenced interviewees’ perceptions of aging, several people talked about one or both of their parents. So I began to ask quite specifically how parents influenced attitudes and beliefs about aging. The responses have been varied and fascinating.

You may want to consider how your parent(s) or other significant persons influenced your beliefs about aging and your concept of “old”. Correspondingly how you experience and talk about aging may influence your children and other young(er) people, particularly those who are close to you.

2. This interview process is having a greater positive impact for interviewees than I could have imagined or hoped for – with their kids, their siblings, their parents, their grandchildren, their partner/spouse, and especially themselves. It seems to be offering people an opportunity to reflect, share and talk about topics that they might not have otherwise done.

Our beliefs about death and dying are very personal, unique and sacred and generally are not discussed. At first it felt awkward for me to inquire about them. However once I asked, once they began to talk, it became easier and afforded them a sense of freedom to express their concerns, fears, hopes, experiences with or about death. In fact, a few people told me afterwards – once the tape recording was off, of course – that they felt relieved to have had a chance to talk about it.

3. This one has been out there for a while and I’ll reiterate it – the notion of “old” is complex. Many people don’t “feel old” and don’t describe themselves as old, no matter their age. I wonder what it is about “old” that repels us from wanting to be described as such or as an elder? Any thoughts or ideas, anyone?

4. When I began this project it was with the intention of completing 100 interviews. After the second or third one, it dawned on me that there might be, and I hope there will be, a rippling effect of this project as more people talk about these ideas. Just imagine the rippling effect of 100 people talking about these big questions and issues – and hopefully the dialogues will continue to ripple out into the world.

5. Several people responded to questions about their death and dying in what they felt were obvious answers –  to die quickly and painlessly. To make it a bit more complex, I will now change the questions slightly and ask: Which do you fear more – dying or death? And which arouses more fear – your own death or the death of someone you love? How about you – how would you answer those questions?

Of course, I’m always looking for more people to participate so how about You? Are you ready or do you know someone in your network who might be interested? Please let me know!

May’s Thoughts on Aging, Death & Dying: Interview no. 12/100

May MacDonald is a retired widow who celebrated her 90th birthday in May. She is a former social service employee, mother of 6, grandmother of 10 and great-grandmother of 8 and clearly enjoying her retirement! May is a brain gymnast – an avid card player, lover of games, puzzles and current events. She describes herself as a happy, outgoing person who loves spending time with her family and friends.

RT: Do you feel comfortable saying your age today?

May: Yes very much so!

RT: And have you always felt comfortable saying your age?

May: Yes, always.

RT: Have there been any situations where you haven’t been comfortable?

May: No, I can’t recall any.

RT: So what do you attribute your comfort to?

May:  Well, the truth. Be honest about things. You can’t change your age. Whether you look your age or don’t look your age, that’s how old you are. I was born in 1921 and that’s the way it is.

RT:  What events in your life have made you aware of your age?

May:  I was married at 20 while the war was on and my husband went off to war for six years so I went back to work – I worked with the government as a civil servant. Then my husband came back from overseas, well he wasn’t the same person. When you’re that far apart from each other for so long, well we struggled it out and started to have a family.

I love kids and so I always loved being pregnant! We had six kids, four daughters and then two sons, each 2 years apart. Well it was an experience of course and I was a stay-at-home mom with each one.

As the years went by, raising the kids was enjoyable, really enjoyable because I was the type of mother who was proud of my children.  As the kids got older I didn’t go back into the work force until my youngest son was in school. Then I separated from my husband because things were going from bad to worse. He was sort of married to his brother more so than with me – he’d get his paycheck for the month and his brother always needed money so he’d give it to him and say, well I’ll give it back to you tomorrow but tomorrow never came. It was a struggle so I couldn’t take any more and I finally separated – he was seeing somebody else and that gave me an out.

That’s when I went back to the work force.

RT: How old were you then?

May: Well, my oldest was 16 so I was about 40.

RT: And how was it going back to work at 40?

May: I had to go back and do some courses. I didn’t know where to start so thought I’d go and take some courses – the math system had changed and I went back to school and got a job with Social Services which worked out great.

My husband at that time was the Director of Social Services and he was on his own…

RT:  Oh so this was a new relationship?

May:  Yes, a new relationship developed from that…I was his right-hand and we got along really well. Then we married and I didn’t have to work anymore. And I haven’t worked since!

RT:  Did you miss working?

May: Not really, no. I had a good life and the kids were constantly coming home – we’re very family-oriented and I loved it when they all came over – everything took place at our home. Unfortunately my husband died in 1988 when he was 62. He’d never been sick all his life and then got cancer of the esophagus and just went down. It just ravaged him. It all happened so fast.

RT: How old were you when he passed away? How old were you when you were widowed?

May: I was three years older than him, so I was 65.

RT: What happened for you then?

May: Well, my husband left me in a financially good position so I just carried on. I had a couple of college students who lived with me and it helped to fill the gap and take my mind off it.

Previous to my husband’s death, I’d had my deaf brother living with me and he’d gotten cancer and died. There was a big space – there was something very badly missing – and I thought, “What can I do to fill this?” So I took in a couple of students and it worked out great. Two were still there when my husband passed away and they were a comfort to me as was my family.

Then my sister and I went to Florida for the winter and when we returned I decided to sell the house and move into something smaller. I couldn’t look after the pool – my husband had been the one to clean and vacuum it because we always had a crowd of people over. Our home was home base to everybody.

But I couldn’t look after the pool and it was so frustrating – it was becoming a problem to me. People were starting to stay away (from the pool area) and it was starting to be frustrating for me. It became a pressure on me and I think “You get rid of pressures and you get rid of problems” so this is what I’ll do.  I said to my girls, “What would you say if we sold the home?” And they said, “Well Mom, if that’s what you want to do let’s go look at the condo across the road.” We went there and I saw one that was still being built and the outlay was terrific for me who was trying to downsize. I said “This is what I’m looking for!”

I put my house up on sale and bought it right there and then. The day I moved into the condo, my house sold so everything fell into place.

RT: What was it like for you to sell “your home base”?

May:  It wasn’t very nice! And yet I knew it was the right thing to do because when things become a burden, when you have a problem and it starts to wear on you, get rid of the problem. That’s exactly why I sold the house. I never looked back. I had a whole house full of furniture and I said to my family, “This is what I’m taking and now you take whatever else is here that you want.”

I was really happy in that condo but the kids seemed to think I wasn’t. My eldest daughter and her husband were alone in their home and she said, “Why don’t you think about coming and living with us?” Well I never thought that I’d ever be living with any of my family. So I gave it some thought and with the pressure my daughters put on me, I ended up living with them and never looked back.

RT: How long have you been living with them?

May: I’ve lived here since 1991 so 20 years.

RT: And you’ve never looked back…?

May: I’ve never looked back and I get along with everybody. I had moments when I wished I had my own little space. My daughter’s home is the family’s home base so I see a lot of my family and when there’s a function going on, it’s a beehive. Our family are a close unit and I love my grandkids dearly.

RT:  What does your age mean to you?

May: Every birthday I celebrate it and I think, “Oh I’m another year older” but I don’t feel any different -other than I’ve slowed down like I’m not able to run a race anymore. I had a very serious back surgery a few years ago that slowed me down a bit but I’ve continued to live with the back problems. I’ve not had anything really to worry about.

RT:  And you don’t use any walking aids…

May: Nobody would know that my legs give me problems. With age, your parts start going but thank goodness any problems I have are not visible! My legs bother me but I don’t let them stop me.

RT:  How do you manage the pain or discomfort?

May: Well I do take some pain medications but I’m sort of anti-drugs. I don’t like to take it if I don’t need it.

I have an attitude that it’s up to me to look after my health and to keep myself in good shape. I was very athletic in my younger years and my husband and I played every sport going. We curled for years.

I also keep busy – I play cards with a whole group of friends. We play Mondays, Tuesday nights, Wednesday afternoons and Thursday nights and I keep the weekends for family and friends. I go and do my grand-daughter’s laundry every week to help her out…she is so busy with her kids and work that she doesn’t have time and I know what that’s like! There’s only so many hours in the day and also that gives me something to do and it makes it worthwhile for me just to go down to her place and give her a helping hand.

RT:  What did you learn from your parents or your elders about aging or growing older?

May: Well, we learned that you take every day at a time. My mother was 94 when she passed away, mind you she was in a nursing home for a few years. My father was 86 when he passed away and wasn’t in the best of health. Life was about getting on with it and doing your best.

I remember an incident when I was a little girl, maybe 8 or 9 years old, and learning to ride the bicycle. I wanted so much to learn to ride. I was riding the bicycle on the paved part of the road and I saw all this money all the way down the road. So I put my foot down (I didn’t know how to stop yet!), went back, gathered all this money and I ran home. My father was the type that every payday he would go and pay the bills off, then go buy his beer. We sort of hated payday at our house. It was the only time my father drank – on payday which was every two weeks.

So my father had gone and I’d rushed home with all this money and I said “Mom, look! I found all this money!”

And she said, “Well, where did you get it?”

So I told her, “It was on the road so I had to stop and pick it all up!”

She said, “Well we’ll just have to put it in an envelope and you take it up to the Reeve of the town. He’ll put a note on the post office door – a sum of money found.”
I looked at her and asked, “But don’t you want it?”

And she said, “But it’s not ours. It belongs to somebody else that’s lost it and it must go back there.”

So I left the bicycle there and walked up to the Reeve and gave him the envelope of money and told him where I found it.

It wasn’t long before a farmer whom we knew quite well claimed it. He’d been to the mill with a team of horses and he’d shoved the money into his pocket. Well of course he’d driven downhill and the money had fallen out of his pocket all over the road!

This was an experience I’ve never forgotten and I’ve never forgotten the words my mother said.

RT: What about it stayed with you? What impressed you?

May: To be truthful and to be honest. The farmer who had lost this money came to our home afterwards and gave me two dollars. Well, two dollars to me was a lot of money! It was around 1929 or 1930…that was a lot of money in those days! Especially being in such a large family with so many kids.

There were a lot of big families then. I’m the only one in our family who had many kids. I used to call myself a Fertile Myrtle!

RT: You enjoyed being a mom?

May:  Yes, I had darling children. And I also love being a grandmother and great-grandmother! There’s payment galore there.

RT: Do you feel like that’s been your life purpose?

May: I think it probably has. It’s the part of life that I’ve enjoyed most.

RT: What about it have you enjoyed most or found meaningful?

May: Well today, I love having my family around all the time and not having to go to a nursing home at my age. My sister has been in a nursing home for about a year now and I watched my mother in a nursing home. I think to myself: Here I am, 90 years old, living a luxury life. And I’m so grateful. I go to church every Sunday. I enjoy every day. I get up every morning at 5am, turn on the TV, listen to the news and learn what’s happening. I’m a news freak – I need to know what’s going on all over the world. I have a lot to be grateful for in my life, and I am. And at 90 years old, here I am living a great life and taking good care of myself along with a doctor whom I like very much and a family who is so good to me.

I actually worked at finding a doctor whom I liked. I didn’t like my previous doctor and so I changed to a different one.

RT: What are you doing to take care of yourself and your health? What have you done over the years? 

May: I get lots of rest, I eat properly, I eat lots of fruit and vegetables. I love to cook and now I cook when my daughter isn’t here so she doesn’t lose her role as chef in her kitchen which I understand! This is her home, this is her kitchen.

RT: So what does old mean to you?

May: Well I’m not quite sure what old means! Some people are old at 60, some at 50, some people are never old! And I myself don’t feel old. I can get up in the morning and I have my shower. When I go to nursing homes and see these people who don’t get a shower every day, not that I think they’re well-looked after but in a lot of places they aren’t.  I know that when my sister had a stroke, I brought her home and tried to look after her but it was just too much for me. I ended up having to place her in an institution. So she aged at 58 when she had a stroke. 58!

RT:  Sounds like your ideas about old have to do with health, frailty, …

May: There are so many different aspects to old age. There are different degrees of old age. Some people at 50 can be very old and then there are people like me at 90 who are very active. I think a lot of it has to do with your genes, the way you live, and your attitude towards other people and towards everyday life.

Every day is a different day. I never seem to do the same thing from one day to the next which would be boring and boredom for me! I enjoy variety.

There was a time when I used to skate and loved skating. I thought I’d never give up my skates but I did. There came a day when I couldn’t skate anymore and I didn’t dwell on it. It just finally faded away. Things you stop doing sort of fade away and other things come into its place. Like I have a jigsaw puzzle upstairs to do with a thousand pieces, it’s a real challenge and I like a challenge. And I also do word puzzle books galore…if I wake up in the middle of the night, I’ll do some word puzzles. First thing in the morning, I always do 2, 3 maybe 4 pages of word puzzles. It’s like an addiction! And it’s educational! And you’re never too old to learn. Never too old!!

Life is full of tests and how you handle the tests has a lot to do with your well-being. Some people never get over things. I believe that if you believe, that if you’re a believer, and I am…I’m not a religious person but I like going to church and I do believe…that there’s a lot of guidance there.

RT: What kind of guidance has it offered you?

May: It’s offered me security in my own mind and keeps me going in the right direction. It gives me great satisfaction. When I come home from church I feel almost cleaned out…a peace of mind.  Some people think they can get through this world without any help. You don’t see the help but everybody needs help. Everybody needs good friends. And a couple of bucks in your pocket helps.

RT: What are your thoughts on death or dying?

May: Often in the middle of the night I think of it, I often see myself laid out. I see my family lamenting but I know this is part of life and someday it will come. I never give it a thought that it could be today or tomorrow. I just carry on. And I think that everybody thinks about it, especially when you get older. These are things you do think and as you lose your older friends one by one, then you start to wonder when my day will be. Any day that I’m able to go to a funeral, I do and pay my respects.

RT: What have been the best things about getting older, of reaching ninety?

May: It’s been having my family and seeing my family become established, having them around me today.

RT: And what have been the harder things about getting older for you?

May: That you do have to give up some things. And it depends on how old you are, like I said, age is a whole variety of times. And nobody is the same.

RT: Do you think living with your family has helped you live longer?

May: Yes, I think it has. Maybe because my responsibilities are lessened. I don’t have the same responsibilities that I had earlier in life. I have no responsibilities other than cash my cheque and pay my way here, get up in the morning, have my breakfast and dinner at night, spend my days learning and doing what I like and go to bed.

RT: What do you know today that you didn’t know as a young adult or middle-aged adult? What do you appreciate now that you didn’t appreciate when you were younger?

May: The independence I have…I love my independence in old age. So many people don’t have their independence and it’s different as you get older. My experience of independence is different than when I was younger because I had so many responsibilities and now those are all gone. The only responsibility I have now is to look after myself and that’s easy.

RT: What do you know about life now that you didn’t know when you were younger?

May: I didn’t know that life is a challenge and life is what you make it. Life could be better for some people if they would deal with it differently. You don’t need to have a whole lot in life to make you happy. If you keep wanting things that are out of your reach and you keep wanting, wanting, you’re not going to be happy until you get it and maybe you’re never going to get it.

But if you have what you need in life to get by – good friends, great family, a roof over your head – what else do you need?

RT: If you were to share a piece about the experience of aging to help people who are younger than you, what would it be?

May: Make your everyday life the best you can. You’ll reach a point where your life will change a little, you must learn to change with it. As life goes on, age is just another year. You have to accept it. You can’t say I wish I was 30 again. How stupid to say you wish you were 30 again – it’s not going to happen! Be thankful, be thankful for small mercies. Be thankful for your life as it is and just look forward to the next day. There are certain things that are inevitable and you learn to accept them. And the better you accept things, the better off you’ll be.

“David John’s” Thoughts on Aging, Death and Dying: Interview no. 11/100

“David John” is a 69-year old retired business man, husband, father and grandfather. He loves traveling, culture, theatre and music.

RT: What does old mean to you? 

DJ: What does old mean to me?

RT: Yes, what does the idea of old mean to you? What does the concept of old mean to you? When is someone old?

DJ: Well, I think there’s a huge variation between people as you get older that you don’t see when you’re younger. Chronologically there’s no choice – you’re old when you’re at an age when people in your age group are dying or when you’re approaching the average life span.

But being old or acting old from my point of view is when you’re fixed at whatever stage you’re at and when you’re not open to change, when your interests are in the past.

There’s such a big difference between people who are the same age when you get to my age or older. I have a living mother and at her age it’s dramatic as well.  As far as I’m concerned it separates the men from the boys!

RT: What’s the difference between where you’re at vs. your mom. When you think of her age and her stage, what shows up for you?

DJ: She’s actually very good, she’s very young in her attitude. She just visited NYC…

RT: How old is she?

DJ: She’s 91, she’ll be 92 in the fall. She still golfs, she still drives, she goes to theatre all the time. She came in for my daughter’s graduation here in NYC and walked at least a mile every day. She went to see a play, the Book of Mormon, which is certainly not geared to people who are 90 years old (it’s written by the South Park guys). She loved it and said it was terrific! So she’s an example of someone who is not old to me and she’s living exactly the way I would like to if I ever got to her age.  She’s my role model. She’s aware of modern culture and participates in it.

She’s physically vigorous as well. She eats healthily and she has done so all her life. She never dieted. She doesn’t put sweeteners in her coffee. She eats normal, healthy meals and she keeps physically active. It pays off. She’s lucky too but it pays off in terms of what she’s able to do and how she can enjoy her life.

Recently I visited the city where I grew up and was at an event with my contemporaries. They are old people to me, even the way they look, the way they dress, their hair…they are fixed in their time.  Some people have their heyday and stay there. They have the hairstyle that they had in a certain year, thought it suited them and never changed it. I used to see moustaches like that on men – thinking what year did they get that one?

But I’m lucky because I have teenagers in the house and we share music together. When they love something they plug us into it and I always enjoy that so it fits perfectly. We have a lot of musical tastes in common and I love change and I love new things. It’s not that I force it, it’s that I always like change, I’m excited by change and I embrace change. My mother is the same way and my father was the same way as well.

RT:  It sounds like both your parents have influenced you. Is there anything else that has influenced you and your perceptions of aging – culture, media…?

DJ: Well again, in my family, my mother’s mother lived to 106. Her attitude was like my mother’s – she was also very healthy, never heavy, always ate healthily long before there was talk about healthy. She never jogged, she just went about and had a busy, active life. And they both had to make new friends because their friends had died.

I had a lot of trouble with dying, a tremendous fear of dying until I was 30-something. I couldn’t work it out.  The fear was about coming to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t be here anymore. At some point I realized, “Listen, there’s no “if” about it! It’s not IF I die, it’s WHEN I die!” So I decided I have to make the most of it and try to have the highest quality of life that I can have in between, to find pleasure while I can and not let time pass without knowing it.

I think some of my adjustment has to do with having children and grandchildren. There’s a sense that I’m not going to be here and also a sense of continuity in my mind.

RT:  What have been the best things for you about growing older?

DJ: I always say this to people – there aren’t many good things about getting older! But there is speaking your mind more freely, I think that’s one. And not putting up with things you don’t want to, I mean it should be that way. Not wasting time on things that aren’t important. Not spending time with people you don’t like or don’t want to be with. I mean nobody should do that anyway unless you have to…obviously there are some circumstances where you have no choice.

But overall, not spending time out of obligation where there is none. Time is precious.  And also accepting yourself.  When I was young, particularly as a teenager, I was whomever my friends expected me to be. I had several different close friends and I was somebody different for each of them for a while. I didn’t have confidence in expressing my opinions, which are pretty strong about many subjects, if I thought I would offend people. Certainly as I’ve gotten older I’m not afraid of saying them. I say what I think now. I say it in a nice way but I don’t care whether someone agrees with me or doesn’t agree with me or if they’re shocked or whatever.

I guess you should accept yourself by a certain age and not worry about those things that you worried about all the time. I think the objective is to try and have peace, to be peaceful and not worry about the things that you can’t affect. I guess I’ve gotten better with those things.

The harder things about getting older happen in increments and again, it’s about self-acceptance. I don’t like fighting those things. I think it’s foolish for a man to dye his hair – you think you’ll look younger when you don’t look younger, you just look like you’re the same age but you’ve dyed your hair. Or worrying about baldness or comb-overs or anything else like that. Or plastic surgery to make yourself look younger…I always say I’d line up first and pay the money if it actually made me younger, that would be great! But to pretend you look younger when it doesn’t make you any younger? It doesn’t restore anything that really matters.

I find that you have to adjust with each thing. My husband and I have a way of life that involves eating healthily because we want to stay slim and we want to be able to walk – and we do walk a lot – and to be able to continue to do and not stop doing anything in our lives because we can’t lug our bodies around.

There’s a constant adjustment as you get older. Every five years or so you have to adjust again because the body changes, it slows down and if you don’t adjust the weight starts to increase and then you can’t do the same things. So there’s constant adjustment. But it seems to me that you learn to deal with it. You can’t fight it or pretend it isn’t there. What can you do? It’s what happens. You have to be grateful for what you can do.

RT: Have you ever experienced ageism or age-related stigma?

DJ: Certainly I can tell people looking at me, seeing my age. A relative of ours who is a widow said she feels invisible. You know, we all look at other people, we notice attractive people. I’m not looking at 68-year old people to see how beautiful they are, I look at beautiful men who are 25 years old, now that’s very nice! But let me think about this one, how do people treat me because of my age? I’ve never had job-related issues because my work is unconventional, I’m my own boss. I think work-related ageism would be difficult. I mean there must be a big problem with ageism, even if someone is capable.

RT: On a different note, what do you know today that you didn’t know when you were a young adult?

DJ: I was in a very young marriage which was not satisfying. I guess the most important thing is my relationship with my husband without a doubt. It’s above everything else, a mile above everything else. It’s very precious. I count every moment of it because I’m aware that at some point it will end, either for him or for me, because one of us is going to go and we talk about that a lot.

I guess I’ve realized what’s important in my life and what’s not important. And what other people think isn’t particularly important unless they’re people I really love or care about and there’s a group of them. I guess when I was much younger I was uncomfortable with my physical self, with my physical body, now it is what it is and I’m comfortable with it.

RT: So there’s a lot of acceptance that happened for you…

DJ: Yeah, I always thought how lucky I was but I feel even more strongly about that now with all kinds of things – where I was born, and my family and everything else that has come to me and my life.

RT:  What’s been the most challenging transition for you and what’s helped you through it?

DJ: The most challenging thing was coming out as gay without understanding it, and dealing with the effects of it on my children. Leaving the marriage was very, very difficult. Even though I wanted to leave but leaving with four young children…

I was starting a whole new life that I didn’t really understand and just going with it emotionally. There was no pattern to follow, no role models, nothing else that I knew of about it but I just went with my heart without using my brain which I’ve done most of the time! I always say that the best, most important, decisions you make are made not with the brain but with your heart, taking a leap, taking a jump and taking a chance.

That part is so hard to explain because I meet young, gay people socially and I talk to them and say you can’t understand this, that in the early 1970s I’d never heard of two gay people living together. It wasn’t even an option. I understood about being attracted but I never, never…I actually didn’t know that two men kissed, you know that? So it was pioneering in my own way. And then when I moved out, the day I moved out, I called my-now- husband and said “I’m moving out today” and he said, “Oh! Do you want to move in here?” and I said, “Oh, okay.” We never knew, never had an idea, that we could set up a life together, it wasn’t known, we just did it! But it was nothing we’d seen or read about or heard of. We just decided that if someone didn’t invite the two of us somewhere together, we just wouldn’t go. We didn’t announce it to anybody and it just happened that everything followed. Then of course we got strong.

But at first there was nothing known. We fantasized about that life together but we never heard of it or certainly didn’t know of anyone else living like that. It was a time of tremendous turmoil.

RT:  What helped you through that?

DJ: The emotions were so strong, it was like a tornado. There was no choice. That’s all we wanted so we just kept going. We just saw it through, there wasn’t any thinking. And no talking. It just was.

When I left that day, a close relative said to me, “Do you think this relationship will last?” And I said to him, “Well, I’d be foolish to say so, to make a statement after I’m just coming out of an 11-year relationship that didn’t last but I hope it lasts as long I want it to last. That’s all I can say.”

He said to me, “Well you know that no homosexual relationship has ever lasted more than six months.” So I said, “Well where did you get your information?”

He said, “I don’t know.” So then as soon as I got home to my husband I said to him, “We’re going to make it to six months and I’m going to send him a card when it’s six months and one day!” which he didn’t let me do. Who knew?!

I was 19 when I got married the first time. When this all happened I was 30 and I actually thought that 30 was so old that my life was basically over. I thought whatever happened with this relationship, well there couldn’t be that much of a future because I was already 30 years old. Isn’t that funny?

RT: And how long have you two been together?

DJ: It’ll be 38 years later this year! It’s funny – of course now, people get married in their 30s, have children when they’re in their 40s, I always liked to do things early! Yes, I thought 30 was “It” – you were already over the hill.

RT: Wow! 38 years! Sounds like that was also the best risk you took in your life.

DJ: Yes, it was. And adopting children was another big risk as well. And it was just a jump.

RT:  What was that risk about for you?

DJ: Well it was starting all over. First of all, I never planned on having any more children. I wanted to have children when I was young so that I would grow up and be finished with the child-raising and have adult children when I was still young and could enjoy them, which all turned out to be true. But then I started all over again and I’m still not finished. My husband never had children and it meant a lot to him and that was why I did it. I thought I couldn’t deny him something so basic if that was what he wanted.

And with that too – we were gay, we didn’t know any other gay people who had children, and so we were again at the beginning of that movement here.  Our family was inter-racial and that was another factor. So those were all unknowns to us. When we called the doctor he said that life is a crap shoot and we agreed. And again we went with emotion.

We went through a lot with the whole thing. People used to stop us on the street for both reasons – being gay and being inter-racial.

RT: Wow, you just knocked down barriers everywhere, didn’t you?!

DJ: Well I just believe that we do a little circle and hopefully that spreads out into another ring where people say well I know these people, and it goes on and on. When I left in the first relationship and I was gay, that was a big thing, with the children too. My ex-wife’s doctor said that I was “polymorphous perverse” and that the children must never know (remember it was the early 1970s) and that if they ever found out it would just destroy them. So for a while I didn’t tell.

There was no knowledge around it, there were no TV shows talking about it, there was nothing. I didn’t want to take a chance and risk destroying my children but I was feeling very badly. We never said there was a relationship between my husband and me.  I wanted them to see a good relationship and I like being honest anyway. I’ve always wanted to be truthful and I never wanted to hide things or lie, especially to my children.

It took a number of years and then after a while I realized I didn’t care what that doctor thought, I didn’t believe it. And then I told my eldest and once I told her I thought I should tell the next child and once I started with two, I went to three and four and told them all. Those were difficult days – there was no support or back-up or somebody guiding you. Probably my instincts were pretty good. Ultimately I believe that we’re just humans, basically all the same no matter what the variation.

RT:  Yes, and that it was about love in the end.

DJ: Yes, right. And the whole thing, all aspects of this are about love including being an inter-racial family. The nicest part is that all my children became close to each other and that was what I wanted, that was my fantasy (for them). That’s really important to my husband and me, it gives us a lot of security, to know that our two kids have a solid family that loves them and whom they love.

RT: What do you think of now when you think of your own death or of dying now?

DJ: The only negative, I mean I don’t want to die, that’s for sure, I’d like to have immortality but it doesn’t seem to be a possibility…

RT: Well, how would you like to die?

DJ: Actually, there are two things. I would like to know in advance. I’d like to prepare in whatever way I want to prepare whether I want to speak to people or have things in order. As bad as anything can be, I’d rather know it than not know it. I don’t want surprises in life.

And of course, I’d like it to be sudden. It would be wonderful to know I’d die in three months and then in three months (snaps fingers) Lights Out! I don’t want to suffer, I don’t want pain or to slowly deteriorate in a way in which I can’t look after myself. I don’t want to live like that, I don’t want to be a burden to anybody else. We always say shoot me if I get to a certain stage but I could live with uncertainty, with incapacities, as long as I could move around or get around or do something but as soon as I couldn’t look after myself, I don’t want to be alive.

When you get to my age you see people die slowly with diseases like cancer and it’s pretty horrible. They just get worse and worse. You think how bad this is but you know that next week it’s going to be worse and that you’re going to think that this wasn’t so bad. So how do you want to die is an easy question to answer: some notice and fast (for me!).

RT: What matters to you today? What’s important for you?

DJ: The number one thing that matters most to me is the welfare and wellbeing of the ones that I love.  Also we travel a lot, I’d love to keep traveling. I have a future plan if it ever works out that when the kids are both out of the house, we’d move to Europe for a couple of years, London or Paris, and spend two years there, set up house there and travel all around. So if we’re in good health, if we can afford it and if we see that the kids are settled, we’ll do it.

When you have children, seeing them settled and having lives of their own and being independent, that is an important one. I always thought how exciting it would be to have a grandchild but I realized after I had that grandchild, who is now 17, that the most exciting part for me wasn’t having a grandchild but seeing my child have a child. That was more important. Watching my children, seeing them have their lives, relating to their children. I love looking at my children with their children – it’s really special.

RT:  If you were to share a piece of advice about the experience of aging, or to help others with aging, what would it be?

DJ: I have a good quote by Stephen Sondheim – because I’m a big Stephen Sondheim fan - “Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor” that’s from Into the Woods. My husband and I quote that all the time. You have to take advantage of opportunity.

I also thought that Paul Newman, when he turned 70, said something in an interview that I liked too. Someone said to him how smart he had been in his life choices and he said well the truth is that I’ve been very, very lucky. However the one thing I can say about myself is that when an opportunity presented itself, I took it, I acted on it.

I feel the same way about myself – that I’m very, very lucky but I think you have to actively be open to things and when they are there, take that chance. I think that change is vital. The people I see who don’t cope well are people who can’t deal with change. The truth of it is change comes whether you want it or not. If you get old enough, some of your friends die, people move away, the world changes and if you aren’t open to change, your world diminishes. It keeps diminishing and diminishing. All you’re left with is saving old things, and talking about old things or thinking about how things were wonderful.

My grandmother always said the good old days were not the good old days and that’s quite true. There were no good old days. Do we want to live a hundred years ago when Jews were living in ghettos and Black people were slaves and gay people were killed? Aside from no medicines and antibiotics, so there are no good old days.

My mother was a good example too because my parents had a fantastic relationship. They were close as friends, they shared all kinds of interests together, they loved spending time together, they always spent their time together. But when my father died, which was suddenly, my mother never felt sorry for herself. She felt that she was lucky for what she had, not for what she had lost.

So that was my example. I always felt that it was like the embryo of a chicken before it’s born and  the egg…you have all this nourishment, what a relationship should do and what it should give you, all this nourishment to store up and then when you’re without it, you feed off it. That’s how I look at it. Of course, I’ve never been put to the test but that’s how I hope, if I’m the survivor, I hope that’s how I’ll look at it.

I think you have to be positive and have a sense of humor about things. If you want people around you, you can’t complain. You can’t complain about what’s wrong. Nobody wants to be around that. My grandmother never did that. We always wondered what physically was bothering her because she never said anything. She never complained about her aches and pains. People don’t want to hear that unless it’s a bunch of old people sitting around saying the same thing. Nobody young wants to be around (that).

As you get older, there’s no escaping it, things are more difficult, there’s no question. You get things you never had before. If there’s a muscle you haven’t used in a while, you get a muscle ache.

But my grandmother did those air force exercises in the shower for 40 years. My husband and I both do exercises in the shower, the only official exercise other than walking and running up the stairs. I try to sell people on it, it’s great for flexibility. I want to be flexible, that’s why I do it, that matters to me because that affects my life.

Exercise in the shower is wonderful! It’s heated so it loosens the muscles, you don’t need a fancy outfit, you don’t have to go any place and pay any money and finally you don’t have to take a shower after because you’re in the shower! And it’s great – I used to get neck aches and back aches when I did different things and since I started this, I don’t get them at all.

We want a quality of life, that’s the key! Because what good is it if you don’t have a good physical quality of life. And mental health is important too, as important as physical health. You can’t age well if you don’t spend social time with people. The value of real friendship is so important, real friends are your chosen family. You need people around you, you need to be socially engaged, you need something to stimulate you and good mental health is important as you age, there’s no question. I believe that having peace of mind is really important too…to be a moral person, respecting others and having integrity.

I think perspective is the point. You don’t complain when you have perspective because you know what life is like for 90% of the people in the world. You always have to know how lucky you are, at any age.