Musings on Aging

“I am really getting older”, I was muttering to myself one morning as I tried to stand up from bed feeling achy all over my lower back and knees.

I am 67 years old but I must confess that I have never seriously considered myself elderly until recently when my two older brothers died leaving me as the oldest living male in our family. With the few grey hairs I have, I always thought I can still pass myself off as at least 10 years younger. I even proudly consider and tell others that I am a senior citizen but a “young” senior citizen. This is the reason too why sometimes I purposely do not avail of the senior citizen’s discount in restaurants, unless it involves a hefty sum.

I guess I am still in a denial mode like many others of my age. I blame it on the youth-oriented culture I live in where it is commonly said that “kalabaw lang ang tumatanda” (only carabaos grow old!). Ours too is a society that pretends old people do not exist somehow because they are reminders of something we do not want (death?). That is why anti-aging clinics and health spas, concoctions of ointments and creams, and food supplements that promise to make one look younger are so popular in our society.
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So true is what Ram Dass says in his book, "Still Here: “The images our culture generates are designed to make you feel that aging is a kind of failure; that somehow God made a big mistake. If God were as smart as the commercials, people would be young forever, but since God isn’t, only the wonders of science and commerce can save us.”

But I guess I have to stop laying all the blame on our culture and begin not only accepting but even embracing aging gracefully and start the process of “living our dying” lest we find ourselves one day at death’s door unprepared to face our Maker.

To me, merely accepting aging is not enough. It is too passive. Like waiting for your call to board at the pre-departure area. When one looks at aging this way, the tendency is to brood over one’s losses – one’s youthful looks and strength, the roles one is used to that is now gone and the resulting feelings are self-pity, helplessness, uselessness and even depression.

The image of embracing, however, is more dynamic, more creative and more productive.

Let me share a recent experience. I went to the supermarket for some errands for Thelma one day. After paying for the goods at the counter, I scooped up the grocery bag only to put it down once again. I remembered that due to my bad back and damaged spinal disc, I had been advised not to carry loads heavier than 5 pounds. I mentally computed my load and I thought it was more than 5 pounds. There was no one with me and the car park was still a good walk away. I picked up the grocery bag just the same and instead of carrying it by the handle, I decided to embrace it! The load became much lighter! Try it.

Embracing aging is what Ram Dass means by “aging gracefully”. He continues: “The body and its aging journey can be viewed from a larger perspective… instead of bemoaning the loss of who we were in the past, we marvel instead at who we are becoming now. We may even learn to love our bodies, and to appreciate their different beauty, as they change from young to old.”

Of course, this is easier said than done. Because, as Ram Dass says again: “Our fear of the body as it ages is simply a mask for the fear of death.”

Let me share also what Henri J.M. Nouwen has to say on aging: “Likewise, the autumn of life has the potential to be very colorful: wisdom, humor, care, patience, and joy may bloom splendidly just before we die… The challenge of aging is waiting with an ever-greater patience and ever-stronger expectation. It is living with an eager hope.” (Bread for the Journey)

Fr. Ron Rolheiser, my favorite Oblate Spiritual writer has this to say on aging: “The major task of aging is that of mellowing - grieving, forgiving, letting go, accepting vulnerability, and moving beyond the greed, ambition, competitiveness, and perpetual disappointment of youth. Like a good wine, the soul needs to be mellowed in cracked old barrels (an apt image for aging bodies) to bring out its warm, rich character.”

Finally, I tried to google “aging in the bible” and was given hundreds of beautiful and inspiring references on the subject of aging in the Bible.

Now, all I can say is that it is great to be alive and aging!