Embracing Old Age
by Kathleen Hoy Foley
Two weeks ago I turned seventy-seven—a shocking number since I have lived longer as a “young” person than I have as an old woman. But as I began trying to navigate this uncharted stage of my life, I spotted my reflection in the eyes of society and slowly came to believe its vision for me. Before I realized it, I had absorbed our culture’s fear, hatred, and rejection of old people and discovered that the prime responsibility of the elderly is to resign ourselves to catastrophic disease and the fated march toward death.
Daily I internalized headlines reminding me that no one survives old age. Admonishing me that it is my moral duty to pre-plan my funeral; to spare my survivors the burden of the post-death clean-out by disposing of all of my beloved and comforting accumulations; and to acquiesce to society’s grim vision for my future, which, of course, is my inevitable decline and certain demise.
I got lost, forgetting to protect my precious energy from these damaging onslaughts and swallowed this culture’s old-age paradigm as if it was truth: old people smell. Old people are confused, feeble. Old people cannot make cogent decisions. Old people have to be monitored, directed and lectured to. So as not to be shamed and declared stubborn, an elder must be cooperative and demonstrate a willingness to abide by the rules laid out by society prejudiced against us.
Unwittingly, I had become the other—no longer a person of value but a problem to be solved. I turned into a diminished version of myself living now as a stranger in the world of old age, a world I couldn’t figure out. Obsessing over the changing shape of my body. Fixating on the decrease in my physical energy. And bewildered by bones suddenly grown stiff. I wandered about in the hinterland of what used-to-be—negotiating a world turned against me, burdened by loss and a bleak sense of mourning. According to the propaganda, the best of my life was over and the most I could hope for was a slow decline. Heartened only by an occasional pat on the head for being the cute grandma everyone has always wanted—a condescending insult handed to me recently as if it was a lovely compliment.
I thirsted for a return to my belief in beauty while fending off the high-pressure sales force disguised in white coats and stethoscopes. Professionals using scare tactics to schedule unnecessary physicals, pointless medical tests, invasive procedures, and elective surgeries, as if slicing an eyeball with a scalpel is as benign as a spa treatment…it isn’t. But Medicare pays handsomely.
There I was, regular me, now old lady me with a few sweat-earned dollars in the bank, torn away from all things artistic and captivating. Cast onto a parched desert of surgical steel devices, adult diapers and the looming threat of old-age warehouses conveniently masquerading as assisted living facilities. All of which, according to the snake-oil hawkers, would absolutely improve the quality of my frail, time-limited existence. Just hand over the American Express card.
Then my deceased mother showed up. In life, my mom was a broken woman, permanently haunted by the screeches of her unresolved trauma. Before dementia claimed her and blunted her torment, she took me aside and asked me a question so full of despair and hopelessness that it settled like a scar on my skin—an indictment of me and my failure to soften the blows of her life.
How would you like it if everybody told you that you’re too old to do this? Too sick to do that?
My mother’s caregivers had convinced her that she was a repulsive cripple, an ugly castaway unworthy even of attending Mass.
Slowly, I began to realize that the rising echo of her voice was not an indictment, rather the loving caution of a mentor. A whispered call to rescue myself; to return to beauty before I completely succumbed to the dark art of fear and drowned in the rumble and thunder of its vortex that was in the process of swallowing my light.
So there it was—counsel, wisdom. A heartlight urging me back onto the path of healing I’d strayed from. Guidance. Either embrace my old age or sink further into the chaos of anger and dysfunction.
The choice was mine to make.
khf/2024
by Kathleen Hoy Foley
Two weeks ago I turned seventy-seven—a shocking number since I have lived longer as a “young” person than I have as an old woman. But as I began trying to navigate this uncharted stage of my life, I spotted my reflection in the eyes of society and slowly came to believe its vision for me. Before I realized it, I had absorbed our culture’s fear, hatred, and rejection of old people and discovered that the prime responsibility of the elderly is to resign ourselves to catastrophic disease and the fated march toward death.
Daily I internalized headlines reminding me that no one survives old age. Admonishing me that it is my moral duty to pre-plan my funeral; to spare my survivors the burden of the post-death clean-out by disposing of all of my beloved and comforting accumulations; and to acquiesce to society’s grim vision for my future, which, of course, is my inevitable decline and certain demise.
I got lost, forgetting to protect my precious energy from these damaging onslaughts and swallowed this culture’s old-age paradigm as if it was truth: old people smell. Old people are confused, feeble. Old people cannot make cogent decisions. Old people have to be monitored, directed and lectured to. So as not to be shamed and declared stubborn, an elder must be cooperative and demonstrate a willingness to abide by the rules laid out by society prejudiced against us.
Unwittingly, I had become the other—no longer a person of value but a problem to be solved. I turned into a diminished version of myself living now as a stranger in the world of old age, a world I couldn’t figure out. Obsessing over the changing shape of my body. Fixating on the decrease in my physical energy. And bewildered by bones suddenly grown stiff. I wandered about in the hinterland of what used-to-be—negotiating a world turned against me, burdened by loss and a bleak sense of mourning. According to the propaganda, the best of my life was over and the most I could hope for was a slow decline. Heartened only by an occasional pat on the head for being the cute grandma everyone has always wanted—a condescending insult handed to me recently as if it was a lovely compliment.
I thirsted for a return to my belief in beauty while fending off the high-pressure sales force disguised in white coats and stethoscopes. Professionals using scare tactics to schedule unnecessary physicals, pointless medical tests, invasive procedures, and elective surgeries, as if slicing an eyeball with a scalpel is as benign as a spa treatment…it isn’t. But Medicare pays handsomely.
There I was, regular me, now old lady me with a few sweat-earned dollars in the bank, torn away from all things artistic and captivating. Cast onto a parched desert of surgical steel devices, adult diapers and the looming threat of old-age warehouses conveniently masquerading as assisted living facilities. All of which, according to the snake-oil hawkers, would absolutely improve the quality of my frail, time-limited existence. Just hand over the American Express card.
Then my deceased mother showed up. In life, my mom was a broken woman, permanently haunted by the screeches of her unresolved trauma. Before dementia claimed her and blunted her torment, she took me aside and asked me a question so full of despair and hopelessness that it settled like a scar on my skin—an indictment of me and my failure to soften the blows of her life.
How would you like it if everybody told you that you’re too old to do this? Too sick to do that?
My mother’s caregivers had convinced her that she was a repulsive cripple, an ugly castaway unworthy even of attending Mass.
Slowly, I began to realize that the rising echo of her voice was not an indictment, rather the loving caution of a mentor. A whispered call to rescue myself; to return to beauty before I completely succumbed to the dark art of fear and drowned in the rumble and thunder of its vortex that was in the process of swallowing my light.
So there it was—counsel, wisdom. A heartlight urging me back onto the path of healing I’d strayed from. Guidance. Either embrace my old age or sink further into the chaos of anger and dysfunction.
The choice was mine to make.
khf/2024
