by Vincent Tilford, Executive Director
While driving with my teenage son, we saw a bumper sticker that read, “I still blame Yoko.” “What’s a yoko?” he asked.
If I was ever in denial about my age, his question reminded me that statistically, I have way more years in my rearview mirror than what I have left ahead. Generally, I don’t dwell on my mortality because it is a little chilling to think about Grim skulking in the shadows with his sickle.
While I would like to believe that I have time to complete any unfinished business, the truth is that none of us know when our alarm will ring. If you’re in good health, you are likely to spring through your days making plans: your children’s college graduations, their weddings, or a trip. Then, while you are packing to go visit your grandchild for the first time, Mr. Reaper sees it as the perfect moment to jump out at you yelling, “Game over!”
It could be life threatening: cancer, stroke or heart attack. It could be life changing: fading sight, a fall that leaves you in chronic pain, or memory loss. Often it’s both. Whatever the circumstances, you can bet that the timing will stink, trashing any carefully laid plans.
Most people never consider the impact that aging might have on their future. We hope that we will be healthy enough to check off the items on our bucket list, but hope isn’t the same as being prepared.
Preparation means having conversations with relatives and/or friends about medical, financial and family issues you might face as you get older. It means assuring that the legal issues around estate planning, guardianship, advance directives and living wills are in place. It means being free to make the choices that you still can make even when your health betrays and robs you of other decisions. It means having a say in what happens to you when you can’t say.
But too often, we are afraid of getting old and all that we believe it means. Say “old person” or “senior citizen” and in most cases, we think of a frail, older adult with dementia, arthritis or some other chronic illness. We look at these conditions like we would view someone wearing police clothes or medical scrubs. The sickness, like the uniform, defines them.
Most of us don’t like thinking about getting old and the losses that come with it. As some capacities diminish, our concerns turn towards the loss of independence and self-determination. We worry about having to live in a nursing home, where freedom to choose is a distant second to the institutional need to keep us safe. Yet we also don’t want to become a burden on our families. Hence, we deny our growing deficits and/or hide them from our relatives and friends, kicking the can down the road until it dead ends.
If we are to change the narrative on “growing old” we must first accept that getting older will eventually require course changes and likely several of them. When we understand that “aging” happens, if you are lucky, it frees us to shape our lives around what matters most to us like spending time with family, conversations with friends and shared experiences. It gives us perspective. Once we realize this, we can start making plans that help us to live life on our own terms and savor the time that remains.
And for that Yoko question? I went with a response that never ages, “Ask your mom.”
