Cousin Bev

We have an elderly cousin who lives in Canada, and she is a computer whiz-kid (or whatever the equivalent is for someone over 80). Over the years we have had a stream of musical e-mails, often humorous, very folksy in an American sort of way; always positive. Although her latest, like many others, is sentimental, I thought it might interest you. It’s called ‘A Parents Wish’ and is addressed ‘to our dear child’ and here are some extracts from the text.

If when we speak to you, we repeat the same things over and over again, do not interrupt us…listen to us. When you were small, we read the same story a thousand times until you went to sleep.

When we do not want to have a shower, neither shame nor scold us. Remember when we had to chase you with your thousand excuses to get you to shower.

When you see our ignorance of new technologies, help us to navigate our way through the worldwide web.

When at some moments we lose the memory or the thread of our conversation, let us have the necessary time to remember – and if we cannot, do not become nervous. The most important thing is not our conversation but surely to be with you.

When our tired legs give way and do not allow us to walk without a cane, lend us your hand, the same way we did when you tried your first faltering steps.

You mustn’t feel sad, angry or ashamed for having us near you. Instead try to understand us and help us like we did when you were young.

And when some day we say to you that we do not want to live anymore, that we want to die, do not get angry. Someday you will understand.

Help us to live the rest of our life with love and dignity. We will pay you with a smile and the immense love we have always had for you in our hearts.

We love you, child. Mom and Dad.

(You can have the advantage of music and moving images on the original website http://parents/wish.com)

B.R.

Long Life

I see from a news item on the main euroresidentes website that there are now 7 million people in Spain who are over sixty five years of age; I wonder how many of them are of English origin. Seeking sunshine and simple living, reasonably cheap housing and a new way of life, it seems to be the place to retire for many British people. In the region where euroresidentes is based and which we know well, there are areas populated by immigrants from various parts of Northern European, national enclaves of people converting to a Mediterranean style of life.

…And death? Some years ago when we were thinking of buying a holiday home for ourselves we came across someone who wanted to sell her property. She was a widow and was stranded in a country that had once been a dream but, now, alone, felt more like a nightmare, and more than anything else she wanted to go to back to what had never stopped being home. For many others, still in the prime of life, the great decision has no doubt been successful, but it’ is a big decision.

There’s no doubt that if you maintain a healthy sort of life, southern Spain is a good place to live. I see the average life-expectancy for women in Spain is 83.8 years and for men 77.2 years, apparently the highest in Europe. The sunshine, the fruit, the olive oil and fresh fish and the culture of easy and relaxed meals favours good living, and when we are by the sea in Alicante’s San Juan there is a never-ending procession of earnest elderly people (younger people too of course) energetically walking along the beach.

According to the research quoted on the euroresidentes news item, those who are living until they are over a hundred, are healthier than their children now in their eighties! Would the possibility of a long life be equally true for present day migrants, or is this all part of the basic living skills that Spanish people of an older generation had to learn during years of political unrest and social deprivation? They managed without all the dietary and exercise regimes that feature in the U.K. They just survived against the odds.

It interests me that living as we do in a violent world and surrounded by the most appalling injustices, we go on wanting to live as long as possible. Much of it I suppose is because of our families and friends, whom we never want to leave.

Meanwhile, may the seven million Spanish Wrinklies, prosper and live long!

B.R.

Managing

I caught a glimpse on TV yesterday of an interview with a doctor who specialises in ‘Age Management’, which I discover from the internet covers a range of treatments, all of which seem to be about pretending that ageing doesn’t happen. From hormone treament to dietary advice, there is clearly a whole business going on devoted to age denial (or ‘age-control’ as the A.M. proponents might say). I was quite unaware of all this, although constant adverts using middle-aged film stars advertising anti-wrinkle creams should have prepared me for it.

Most of the companies who offer treatment and advice are American. One of them speaks of the ‘unique science of A.M. offering a ‘state of the art electronic body composition analysis by harmless near-infrared light to provide the body fat, lean mass, normalized body water, Body Mass index measure’. Physical strength assessment is done with ‘Spirometry and handgrip dynamometer.’ Money of course is involved, but I didn’t get that far. It all sounds very impressive if, for me, incomprehensible.

But the real and for me illusory agenda is revealed in another American website which claims ‘contrary to some who would sensationalise, ageing is not a disease, but rather a process, that hopefully, we will all experience over an increasing, lengthening period of time’. No complaints about that, but then I read this, ‘the new specialty provides opportunities to not only maintain, but to regain youthful vigor and live healthier, higher quality lives’’. We all want to be healthy and have quality lives, but getting young again? That’s dangerous nonsense.

We have had friends staying with us whom we first knew when we were students. Inevitably we found ourselves comparing those days with how we live today, sometimes regretting our present limitations, but mostly being very positive about the pleasures we enjoy as older people, rather than wanting to be young again or, worse, pretending to be young. There was no manifesto-statement about it, but I think we were saying that the ageing ‘process’ – and two of us are now 76 - is endurable and quite often enjoyable. The average age expectation in the U.K. is 79. If we ever crash on into the 80’s, we might of course have a different story to tell.

The inference in these commercial websites – and by what I heard from that TV interview – is that all of us want to go on living as long as possible. I think most of us do ; but hopefully without the aid of ‘spirometry and handgrip dynamometer’.

B.R.