Christmas Catch-Up

During the nearly 50 years of our marriage, work has taken us around the country. In the process we have made many friends and ‘The Christmas Letter’ from some of them has become an annual ritual to which we look forward each year. At a time of economic and political gloom, this year everyone seems as cheerful as ever. And whilst there are sad references, with news of several elderly people dying, even these have a positive edge – ‘but she died peacefully’ for example.

People have changed jobs, and settled down in new places with new colleagues. A friend marvels at the surprise 60th birthday laid on for her. People have been abroad – Ghana, Paris, Portugal, and in many places in this country where the emphasis is often on energetic activities, although ‘our annual bird watching trip to Norfolk’ sounds less strenuous as no doubt was a visit to the Eden Project (‘again’).

One family has gone into urban farming and have bought their first two hens. There have been a lot of family holidays, one of them on a barge with the comment ‘it is noticeable that my ability to leap on and off the boat is not what it was’. Others used a break from work to do house repairs and decorations, one of them adding a topical moan that ‘frequent showers made it a slow and frustrating job’. Another reference to the British weather, ‘my allotment suffered this summer from the rain’, and I have sympathy with that one.

Not only do our correspondents give news of their families, in several cases members of the family themselves report on their eventful lives. One of them writes ‘as far as school goes I am continuing to work as hard as is possible’. It’s this emphasis on the next generation that is typical of all our letters. There is enormous pride in children’s achievements and multiple talents. We have been very impressed – and moved – by the way in which friends whom we knew when they themselves were young, are now parents to some remarkable and hugely talented children and young adults. There are several paeans of praise for grandchildren, and we understand that well!

Many of the letters come across as a celebration of life, and although they are from friends who we are not able to see very often or at all, hearing their news is one of the highlights of our Christmas and has become a celebration of our own life and family as well.

To you – if you are reading this just now - Happy Christmas! And for all of us, may the New Year be one of peace and justice in the world, and for us older ones, a year of fulfilment and joy.

Bryan

'Deaf Sentence'

This is the arresting title of David Lodge’s new book, which I have just finished reading. Often very funny indeed, it tells the poignant story of a retired professor of linguistics, Desmond Bates, who is growing deaf and it recounts his adventures in coping with the affliction, and, often unsuccessfully, in trying to conceal the fact from others.

He gets involved in conversations and situations that, through misunderstandings, quickly get out of control , as he struggles to cope with the mental confusion of his elderly father, the commercial enterprise of his achieving wife and the unwelcome attentions of a student who wants his advice on a PhD thesis she is writing. (I found that the least convincing part of the book). Otherwise I kept on laughing out loud at a book that gave me enormous pleasure, but also a new empathy for people with hearing difficulties.

Behind the book is the story of Lodge’s own experience. Now 73 he became aware of his hearing problems in his late 40’s. An academic himself, he thought his students were mumbling and asked them to speak up. For a year he tried to manage, but when his wife and three children accused him of not listening to them, he realised he had to do something about it. He was diagnosed as suffering from presbyacusis, or age-related hearing loss which normally affects people in their mid-50’s. Apparently it involves the hair cells in the inner ears. Born with 16,000 of these cells they die as we age and by 65 we have lost 40% of them.

Lodge retired from teaching, began the laborious journey of finding the hearing aid that suited him best, and became a full time writer amassing the amazing total of 15 novels, and 11 non-fiction books which are often associated with his love and wide knowledge of literature. In an interview with him which I have found on the Web, he says his deafness has caused him to retreat into himself. ‘I get anxious, and deafness makes me more so which adds to my depression.’ He misses most the ability to take a full part in conversations. ‘I feel I’m not so amusing any more as I’m always struggling to keep up with what’s being said. I used to be ahead of the conversation. Now I lag behind’.

Clearly Desmond Bates is Lodge’s alter ego, and perhaps in writing a book that is often very funny indeed, he has exorcised some of his own demons, but also introduced his readers to a condition which many of us have to deal with as we grow older.

Bryan

'There's nothing we can do about it'

I’ve heard those words from my doctor before. Going to him with a small list of physical problems, with one exception comparatively minor things, he had a look at where the pain was, and suggested a blood test and an X ray (both addressed before the day was done). And once the result of those are known, he said, it will be easier to work out what’s wrong. The minor ones are more difficult. It’s then that I hear what is becoming a familiar phrase as one gets older: it’s all to do with age (being a kind man my doctor doesn’t actually say that, but grins sympathetically). And ‘there’s nothing we can do about it’.

Getting used to a body, that more and more becomes a stranger to you, is one of the least pleasurable experiences of the ageing process. Your body is not only a stranger, but potentially a tyrant as well. It dictates what you can and can not do. Long walks become difficult. It’s not so easy to hear what people are saying, especially in a crowded room. Favourite food is less digestible than it used to be. Memory is elusive, and long pauses as you try to respond to a question can be embarrassing to others and deeply frustrating to yourself. Aches and pains can keep you awake at night, and in fact sleeping itself can become a problem for some people, as they lay awake and wonder who is this stranger they are now living with. The medics suggest that at some time in the future you may need surgery, perhaps. You hear of old friends who are struggling with multiple problems. And so it goes on.

Christmas can make it worse! Those annual letters are already beginning to arrive; just as you are ageing, so are the friends of your generation, and there are sad stories of illness and debility and although often matched by bravery and endurance, you can’t help wondering if it will be your turn next. Sympathy for them begins to turn into anxiety about yourself.

We are all different and some of us seem able to shrug off these things, and to accept bad news stoically, whereas others of us are natural worriers. For example I am an unreconstructed hypochondriac, surprised by the fact that in recent years I actually have had serious health problems, and not just imagined them!

Meanwhile for many of us, the positives still outweigh the negatives. You are still you, and are surrounded by the same patient and loving family. The context of your life remains firm, you are in touch with good friends, able to do many of the things that are part of the good life, enriched by new experiences, accepting this time of your life as some sort of adventure that demands a response and challenges your resilience.

There are some things that the doctor can’t ‘do about it’. But we can.

Bryan