A Better Understanding

I have spent much of my working life amongst older people and have tried to be sympathetic, as they told me about their aches and pains. I have watched people searching in pockets or purses for change as they paid for their bus fares, with other passengers impatient at the delay, and have watched people carefully walk across pedestrian crossings, trying to achieve the process before the lights change to red. I have overheard whispered conversations with pharmacists as an older person explains some personal need, and asks for a treatment.

I used to visit people in hospital and in old people’s homes, always admiring the way they often adapted to new circumstances, often with courage and stoicism, and when they were confused or anxious, I have tried to reassure them. I hope as a younger man I was patient and kind, although I do remember on one occasion listening in blood-curdling detail to a twenty minute narrative about an old lady’s bunion, eventually fleeing from her home, no longer able to cope with the account of her adventures under the surgeon’s knife.

But I never really understood what it was like to be old.

Having become older myself, it’s different now. I am myself into this new dimension of life, responding to the challenge it brings and sharing in the struggle it sometimes involves. I have a deepened sympathy for older people for I too walk with care, my visits to our kindly doctor are becoming a habit, and the routine of daily life whilst important to me, is in danger of sapping my appetite for new experiences. I now understand the stories I used to hear from older people about their lives’ restrictions, and have sympathy for their limitation of interest beyond themselves which can make us so me-centred, though am trying to resist making up such stories of my own! ‘You are not old’, laughs my doctor, and I realise that he deals with people who are much older than me, and in serious need of medical care.

Our local independent cinema has showings for pensioners. There was a crowd of us there the other day, a couple of hundred at least. I watched people as they left, silhouetted against the screen still showing the credits. Lots of sprightly older people, but some were lame and halting, as they fumbled towards the light. Several had walking sticks, some couples holding on to each other, others still sitting when most people had left, waiting for sufficient space to make their exit alone. We were a parade of the ageing, and I was one of them, understanding a way of life which, when I was younger I recognised was an inconvenience, but had no idea of the real consequences of age as I now do. Still with sympathy, I now watch older people with empathy as well.

Bryan