Taking Seniors Out of the Box

- Fencer's Adage

Two years before he died, my father told me that the worst thing about aging is disappearing. He described feeling as "a ghost with people no longer seeing me as I walk through my life." My father's description of the inherent loneliness of aging saddened me. I wondered if there were any other ghosts among the 39.5 million senior citizens and if I could do anything about it. Seems like a lot of loneliness to me.

Don't Prematurely Kill The Elderly

Think about how you behave when you see elderly people as you go about your daily activities. Do you even notice them?

I began to pay attention and it seems that dad had a point. As I monitored my own behavior and observed others, I noticed that we tend to put the elderly in what I call a pre-death phase where we begin to discount them. We react to the elderly much as we do when we see a handicapped or disfigured person - we avert our eyes, look just above them, or at best manage a brief smile. Yet it never occurs to us to engage them. We are uncomfortable because we don't quite know what do to with the elderly and many of us don't have much direct experience with seniors outside of our immediate family.

When we ignore seniors, we run the risk of erasing our past and arriving at our future unprepared.

Seniors Hold our Past

Seniors hold the institutional memories of a generation - fascinating stories about the past and skills that we may lose if we don't learn from them. The economy is the worst it's been since the depression. Seniors lived through the depression and can share that experience with us. Seniors are the keepers of our past and we have a responsibility to respect them as the valuable resources they are.

We are increasingly concerned with going green to stave off the damage we have done to our planet. What about going grey to ensure the arts, knowledge, talent, and experience of our seniors don't die with them.

Sure, we can Google pretty much any topic, but Google doesn't offer the comfort of an older woman assuring a younger woman that her heartache will pass.

Or an older man tutoring a middle-aged man to survive a midlife crisis without trashing his marriage.

Or the utter relaxation you might feel when an older person not only doesn't believe what you've just confessed is the most grievous sin ever committed, but give a conspiratorial "I've done that too" giggle.

The elderly have been there, done that, and survived to tell the tale. We can tap into the wisdom of the ages if we stop stereotyping seniors and remember to interact with them as the human beings they are.

What Seniors Think and Feel

Outwardly, you may see an old man living alone napping in his La-Z-Boy, but here are some of the thoughts that run through that 74-year-old's mind.

• Most people love you too little or too much to give you a proper ass kicking when you need it, so you hire a therapist to do it for you.

• Where are the elders whose wisdom we called upon in our youth? They are we and that is scary indeed!

• My ex-son-in-law often said of my daughter, "I just love her to death, but..." He knew little of love and nothing of the redemptive power of love. That power could have overcome the behavior to which he was taking exception.

• Senior Group Activities -- It's like being in junior high again, before we all started pairing off.

• Missing a deceased spouse is an itch you can't scratch; it's like the phantom pain from an amputated limb.

• The hot, sweaty, steamy sex of my youth -- I remember it as a man athirst remembers the quenching water.

Seniors may be in wheelchairs, walkers, nursing homes, running marathons, or tending bar. No matter how they appear, (remember not to judge a book by the cover), seniors need:

• independence and freedom

• a purpose in life

• security

• sexual intimacy

• health

• self-esteem

• relationships and a sense of belonging

• to be heard

• to help and to be helped

• fun and leisure

• to continue learning

• love

Do you share any of these wants? Of course you do. These are fundamental human needs common to us all. Guess what? Seniors are people too!

Seniors Go Boldly Where We Have Yet to Go

Seniors are the pioneers of our future because they will go there first. From them, we can face our own mortality with dignity, grace, and a lot less fear. When my dad was diagnosed with cancer, the circumstance mandated a new level of intimacy between us. Talks about feelings replaced talks about things and memories trumped plans. We didn't know it, but we had just three precious weeks left. Dad hated hospitals because he spent so much time performing last rites in them. He never wanted to die in one, but double pneumonia took the opportunity to invade his already damaged lungs. Barely able to speak, his one-word entreaty "home" spoke the question I didn't want to answer. It fell to me to confirm what he already suspected - he was going home, just not his home.

How to Honor Seniors

To honor my father (and surprisingly ease some of my grief), I began to "see" the elderly. I'm not on a mission and I don't go out of my way to seek out elderly people with whom I can interact. I would likely be arrested for stalking and such behavior would defeat my purpose; realizing that the elderly are regular folks just like us and consciously expanding my view so that I see them.

I had a delightful conversation with an elderly man at the car wash. He had brought his Maltese and since I have a Maltese, we had an instant topic of conversation which then turned to authors we enjoy as he noticed a book I was carrying.

I began a conversation about the virtues of baking a cake from scratch with an elderly woman while we shopped the baking supplies aisle in the grocery store. We both wondered if young girls today will know the satisfaction of creating a homemade dessert in the kitchen.

I caught a buzz with an elderly couple and laughed until I cried at their antics and stories. To this day, they are the coolest people I've met and I'm grateful that they taught me to two-step (to a disco song no less).

Seniors are online. An 81 year-old, irritated at the expectation that he should be drooling in a nursing home posted this observation. , "If any whippersnapper criticizes you or makes fun of your efforts to stay active, just tell him/her you survived your youth and are enjoying your senior years. It isn't quite as satisfying as, "Go to hell," but you must remember that we elderly are expected to be dignified at all times."

While manners and common courtesy go a long way, not every senior person will be friendly. Jerks come in all ages.

I'd like to think that I'm brightening the days of the seniors I see. Truth is they are brightening mine. I miss my dad a bit less when I'm around his contemporaries. I learn a great deal about many things. I laugh a lot. I smile more and am nicer to all strangers than I was when I walked around in my own self-absorbed little bubble. My journey through life is a little slower - I'm not rushing toward an imaginary finish line any more.

Sources:

Quote - http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OldMaster

CIA Factbook - US population age 65 years and over: 12.8% (male 16,901,232/female 22,571,696) (2009 est.)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html

Fundamental Human Needs - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_human_needs

Helium.com - Elderly People in Modern Society - http://www.helium.com/items/229198-elderly-people-in-modern-society