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A version of this essay published in the Concord Monitor 5/12/20
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| Old Man Crossing the Street in San Francisco CC Jean Stimmell |
I never took a writing course, but when fired up, my first choice is to respond with words. The urge grows stronger as I age. I hope Sam Beckett was right when he said that, paradoxically, the impairments that come with old age, actually tend to make one a better writer.
“With diminished concentration, loss of memory, obscured intelligence—what you, I suspect, would call ‘brain damage’—the more chance there is for saying something closest to what one really is… A child needs to make a sand castle even though it makes no sense to him. In old age, with only a few grains of sand, one has the greatest possibility.”1
When I read that statement, it fired up the few sand grains I have left. True, we no longer have the raw brainpower of the young, but our old noggins resonate with a deeper consciousness, connecting us to our community, the earth, and the cosmos beyond.
That’s my take on what Beckett meant by “greatest possibility.” Most would call this wisdom, and all would agree it is not universal — just look at some of our leaders.
The wisdom of the elderly has been crucial to society’s survival throughout human history. Yet, today, that flies in the face of how many people behave: Shunting old people aside like relic computers with obsolete operating systems. Of course, it’s all come to a head now with at the advent of the coronavirus pandemic. Not only are we useless relics, but now we are told, point-blank, to leave the stage.
Ageism is alive and well.
The chief of the U.N. has condemned the rising tide of hate around the world, which includes attacking the elderly as useless and expendable: A good example came from Texas where the Lieutenant Governor argued that stores should stay open and, if, in the process, many older adults die, it is their patriotic duty to save our capitalistic way of life.
Nuba Kohn wrote recently in the Washington Post: “we are losing our elders not only because they are especially susceptible. They’re also dying because of a more entrenched epidemic: the devaluation of older lives.”2 .
James Hillman, the well-known psychologist, wrote, "It's a central issue in our culture. We don't have adults, mentors, elders. We have fixed ideas of seniors as benighted, almost embalmed,"3
We have been headed down this road for some time with our fetish on youth and obsession with productivity. According to Hillman, society has been arranged to sideline the elderly, giving, by example, the rise of retirement communities which “reinforce the exclusion of the elderly from participation in society.”4
And now, nursing homes, the final retirement home for many, have become death traps. Nineteen old people died in New Hampshire nursing homes from Covid-19, just on the day I write this! And so it is across the nation and around the world. The World Health Organization states that “as many as 50 percent of all the deaths in Europe occurred in such places.”6
This should be no surprise. For decades, government data has shown that nursing homes can be “infection tinderboxes,”7 Just in the last three years, two-thirds of all the nursing homes have been cited for violating rules on preventing infections.
Wisdom, on average, accumulates with age and that is why the elderly have been venerated in cultures throughout history. For that reason, although we may slow down and have to retire from material productivity, our ability to be good citizens blossoms.
Hillman would like to see the elderly restored to the role they’ve had in many tribal cultures “as caretakers of the traditions, stories and crafts, and as intermediaries between the natural and supernatural.” But all is not lost.
I want to thank the Concord Monitor for doing its part to restore us to that role by publishing so many of us regularly. Paraphrasing Lord Tennyson, old age has yet its honor and its toil.
xxx
1 Shainberg, Lawrence. Four Men Shaking (p. 71). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.
4 ibid
6 ibid
7 ibid
1 comment:
Thank you, Jean. My brother in law recently died in a hospital (BEFORE Covid and not because of COVID) because the doctors sent him home rather than pay attention to his situation, misdiagnosing him with disregard. He was 92. After an illustrious life, he died with no respect. He covered the war in Algeria, was a WWII vet, a Korean war hero who saved 75 lives after his captain was killed, covered the Six Day war in the Sinai and in Belfast, Ireland, was the bureau chief in Paris for 17 years and in Boston. He had more experiences than 50 cats in a bag, had stories that were mind blowing every time he opened his mouth. And ageism killed him. My sister was married to him for 54 years and he should still be here. It was a clear cut case. Again, thank you for this. There's so much to say. I'm always glad you say it.
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