Old Age Is Not For Sissies by Diane Krentel Hodge

Someone has said that in life, we only stay young long enough, to strengthen our backs for the burden of old age. Have you noticed that for each new phase of life, there seems to be great preparation and celebration preceding it?  The wonder of young love and marriage…..planning the “perfect marriage”ceremony…..attending marriage seminars…celebrating anniversaries, etc.  Then, another phase evolves…..the excitement of getting ready for a new baby:……”learning how to” classes on breathing and labor,  painting the nursery,  studying manuals on discipline and care….buying scrapbooks and cameras…. just to mention a few things.  Even for our mid-life there are more preparations: celebrating the joys of raising a family….. attending graduations, weddings, baby shower while entering the height of a promising career… Experiences that build on one another to prepare us for each stage of life we were in.

And then, the “harvest” age comes and we find ourselves in an unfamiliar journey….old age.  It sneaks up on us when we are in the “prime of life”.  Suddenly, we are in a new world where there is little, to no preparation for.  No map, instruction manual, or encouraging seminar to navigate through its deep challenges. “Physically, our bodies are telling us, mentally,  that the two are no longer in sync.  Our children look at us with unbelief as if we can snap out of it.” (MEK)  Our extended family watch us as if we have always been old and discount what we try to say and do.  Yet, inside, we feel as if we still are young and wonder why they can’t quite see it. 

As we look around for the “normal” button for this period of life, you might enjoy some of Miggy’s (my Mom’s) journal entries about old age. Her writings should bring a smile to your face or a tear to your eyes. These views are very honest about this complicated time of life. I must say, she never felt she belonged in this age category called “old age” at all! She lived almost 92 years and was mentally alert right to the end! 

For the next few weeks, I will feature other entries she made about surviving in this world of the elderly. 

Here is one short entry:

“Why is it each and every year, on one special day, we locate those short stubby sticks of paraffin hiding in a kitchen drawer and place them, one  by one in the middle of a mound of sweet stuff on top of a cake we call our “birthday cake”?  Each year we sing “Happy Birthday to you.”  But along with each successive birthday, Life seems to lose a little of that giddy happiness we felt when we blew out sweet sixteen.

Why?  I think I know.  As I have now amassed almost ninety of these occasions I know for sure that “old age is not for sissies.”  There are many of you that know that these are the years your feet hurt before they even hit the floor, your head aches and your joints protest.  You grab your raincoat only to discover your eyes have tricked you again and produced the foggy world you think you see out the window Your eyeglasses are all smeared again…..the sun is shining gloriously.  Things are not a they seem.

It occurs to me that it is high time indeed to prepare ourselves for the end of the race.  We want to finish the race gloriously even though some of us belong to a motley group of gray haired puff-a-billies limping for the goal posts.  If it were left up to me, I’d like nothing better than to pull off my sneakers for good and hang my feet up, but it looks like I’ll be here on earth for the full count.

(More next week) Miggy Krentel

Can you relate to any of this yet?  Maybe you are not there yet…but many of us are fast approaching it.