Ten years have passed since I stood at the border about to cross into what is known in America as “retirement.” The retirement hoopla had subsided; life demanded new routines. I had been teaching English for twenty-four years at a small church college. Until then my main energies had been directed toward preparing classroom lectures, grading papers, meeting with students and colleagues in various settings. These dictated my life and gave it meaning. Now I was in charge of my life. I didn’t bolt from the barn like a frisky colt in spring but hesitated at the door. I was scared. I was confident. I felt unsure of my way. I was eager to move ahead. All I knew about this new world was what I had read and observed by watching how those older than I had made the transition. When I wrote Border Crossing, it was from the perspective of someone wading into a backyard pool trying to get to the other side about ten feet away. Ten years later I recognize that the pool is actually a vast ocean. The crossings are numerous. They are continuous. Some have to be repeated. They vary in intensity. They occur in different areas of life. Some never end. But it is also possible to stay near the shore and never venture beyond ankle depth. At the time of my writing I had only begun to plumb those shallow shores of the life of an elder. To stay there meant a stultifying life. The depths beckoned to a risky but energizing life. I reminded myself of Langston Hughes’ words, “Deep water and drowning are not the same thing.” I sensed that people do not grow old; they become old when they quit growing. I want to continue to grow. After Border Crossing was published, I became slowly aware of the vast elder culture in our society. This segment of the population is growing rapidly. It knows more about aging than any previous similar group. These elders are experimenting in developing programs for older adults. They are pushing ahead in many directions, not just to meet health needs but also the needs of soul and spirit. Some are grasping, with vital intensity, that God’s gift to them of the additional ten to thirty years made possible by better health and medical science holds an inherent challenge to live life fully to the end My entrance into this community, both within and outside the church, was hesitant at first, but later much bolder. I began as a kindergartner. I feel I have made much progress. I have added two new chapters to this edition. One, “Night work,” has to do with death and grief. The other, “When I am old,” provides a “Here I stand” statement at this juncture of my life. Something I had feared, bargained with God about for several decades, was the death of my daughter Christine. She died at age forty-six. Grief is part of every older adult’s life. Now I ask, How is this grief as an elder different from my grief when my husband died when I was thirty-eight? The needs of grieving elders are no different from those of younger adults, except for the awareness that death for themselves is closer than it was at sixty-five. A casual glance at the daily obituaries makes one much aware that many people die at my age and much younger. I share in this chapter some of my thoughts and feelings during Christine’s last illness and death. In my first book, Alone: A Widow’s Search for Joy, I had pondered what life would be like when I was old and alone. Now I can answer that question to some degree and do so in Chapter 12. I am three decades older and still alone. What have been the surprises? What turned out as I expected it to? A major surprise was the growing trend to separate the generations in almost every setting. Because there are so many older adults they can be treated like a group, unlike decades ago when a congregation might have a half dozen older adults at the most. There are many other
aspects of growing older that could and need to be
addressed. Today’s elder population will expand even
more as the 76 million baby boomers born between 1946 and
1964 head for retirement. They are used to getting their
way and will change the way society treats its elders.
Having watched my generation grow old, they will change
the face of aging. They may even force some of us to make
additional crossings into new ways of thinking and doing
we hadn’t expected or planned on. Border Crossing orders:
|
|||||||
| Click here to explore joining InnerCircle readers club and receiving occasional updates and special discounts. | |||||||
