Who Do You Tell?

The physical signs of ageing are a problem, but it’s even more of a problem to know who to share them with. The doctor of course. She or he confirms your suspicions (and your research on the inter-net) that you have arteriosclerosis in the knees or rheumatism in your joints, painful feet after walking only a short distance, or whatever, and that it is all to do with getting older. You may go to a nutritionist to be given advice on a change in your diet. Yoga becomes a new therapy as well as a pleasure, though you may resist the philosophy that can go with it. Generational companions can be good listeners: the group of mostly men, whom I meet at cardiac rehabilitation sessions at a local gymnasium, can be understanding repositories of moans and groans!

Then there is your partner, suffering your regular account of aches and pains but needing protection from a too constant recital, which could try their patience. You may talk with people of a similar age. Friends whom we have known for fifty years were recently staying with us and if we were sensible enough not to parade our health audit, there were times when we told each other how it is with us. Another old friend in reply to a recent enquiry wrote ‘We are as well as can be expected’.

Deciding how and who to share anxiety with about mental deterioration is, however, more complicated. It can be a real conversation stopper, for this is about fear, and even the closest of family and friends shy away from the prospect of your descent into dementia or worse. There has been a lot in the U.K. media recently about the lack of care for older people with mental difficulties, a situation that will get worse as people live longer. At the same time there is a campaign for earlier diagnosis of senile dementia, despite the fact that geriatric care is inadequately supported by social and medical services. I know of someone with such problems being put on a waiting list for a consultation, with no indication of how long it will be before she is seen. Before she dies?

We need a new form of expert counselling for older people who fear they are losing touch with reality, so that experiences can be examined, understood, lived with and where possible overcome. It is a very bad idea to keep it all to yourself.

B.R.

What Has it All Been About?

I have been reading two autobiographical books. One is by an old college friend. He sets out in some detail the course of a ministry that took him out of traditional church responsibilities into various forms of community care. The other book is by an ex colleague, an Anglican priest, who reflects on his eleven years in the East End of London, which marked the end of his full time ministry. Vividly and with great humour he brings to life a stressful but rewarding experience. Both books are revealing, sometimes painfully so.

There were times when I was reading that I wanted to say –‘stop, that’s enough; this isn’t a confessional’. Whilst both have had interesting ministries, neither have been conventional practitioners in this strange art of caring for people because they are valuable in themselves, but valuable also to God.

What is this need many older people have to tell their story?

I suppose however many years we have to live, everyone wants to believe the journey has been worthwhile. Identifying the years and trying to work out their personal significance and perhaps their value to others, is important to us. Amongst the few records my father left, he began a summary of the events of his life. Was he trying to keep track of the past as memory faded, or was it in his mind to write his story too? I have written four books, one of which was published. I see in it’s introduction that after suggesting who might find the book helpful, I add , ‘mostly I suppose the book is written for me’.

What has it all been about? Basically it’s been about the work we have done, the places where we have lived, the people we have known and whom we have loved and loved us with the wider history which we have in a small way part of. I suppose we fear all of it might have been of little consequence, and we will be lost in the maelstrom of the years. Well, we will! But more important we don’t want to lose ourselves. Reflection belongs to our personal odyssey, not to justify our life, but to affirm it.

B.R.

'Supernumerary'

A strange word and a teaser for our Spanish translator no doubt, but one that is used to describe the role of a retired Methodist minister, of which I am one. My dictionary defines its meaning as one who is a substitute or extra worker. That's a bit how it feels. Apparently in the theatrical world it’s someone who has a walking-on part but no lines to speak. We don’t have much walking on to do, but when asked, we still speak, wisely perhaps. Other people who stop working leave their work behind. I remember over-hearing a conversation once where a recently retired man was being paraded with pride by his wife, as if after many years she had suddenly discovered him. ‘I haven’t thought about work for a moment’ he boasted, as his wife smiled fondly. In my case it’s the other way round – the work never entirely forgets you.

Twelve of us met recently to celebrate friendships that go back to college days. We had a room to ourselves in a Cistercian Monastery and began by each of us sharing with the others, where and how we found ourselves. There were very different responses. One of us delighted that he and his wife now owned their own house and having lived in a Church house for all of their married life, could do with it whatever they wanted. Wives were often mentioned, their health problems and the greater time spent in their company, enjoying times spent together. Children and grandchildren made up a major part of everyone’s lives and affections.

Some had found retirement a challenge and even after a dozen years or so were still uncomfortable about the tensions between being free and being loyal to the work that had occupied much of their lives. All of us felt to varying degrees estranged from that work and some had severe reservations about the present shape of a Church whose membership has been reduced by as much as two thirds since we left college. We were agreed that we were trained for a different theological tradition. ‘Things ain’t what they were used to be.’

They never are, of course. One of the problems of age is to live in the present with the experience and skills of the past. It’s as impossible for younger people to go back to a past they have never known as it is difficult for older people to embrace the present without pretending to be young. It’s especially hard for older people to do that when they see valuable insights and practices being replaced by what they see as unconvincing ones. And that’s everyone’s problem. Not just grumpy old clerics!

B.R.