GRACEFUL AGING

GRACEFUL AGING
November 10, 1993 – 10:00 a.m.

The “growing pains” of aging are beginning to come my way. Literally, yes, there is mild swelling on my right ankle joint. Lately, I have been experiencing pricking sensations on both extremities, occasional numbness of the legs, mild stabbing pains on my back, frequent right-sided headache. Added to these, I am experiencing occasional hypertension up to 170/100, ++++ urine sugar, frequent uncontrollable sneezing and the usual abdominal discomforts and stomach troubles. I must be old. Yes, I am not afraid. Who is not old? Consider my recent category of aging:

Baby old……………………………40 to 49 Middle old……… 70 to 79
Under old……………………..50 to 59 Old old…………………..80 to 89
Early old……………………..60 to 69 Super old……………..90 to ++

I am still in my early old stage but must admit that sometimes it already hurts. Not the growing pains but the ISOLATION.

My son who used to come with me to the province every Saturday is now pre-occupied with “gimmicks” on weekends. My daughter who used to brisk walk with me round Maria Cristina loop in Ayala Alabang Village is always feeling tired to go with me now.

Many of my contemporaries are already gone. The new youth groups are indulging in entirely different matters that forcing oneself to merge with them only results to a kind of culture shock due to generation gap. That is why I am giving a second thought about my plan to organize a Senior Citizens Group to coordinate with the youth.

I felt this when I showed a rough Constitution and By-Laws to Rex Ferolino (the Youth’s Sectoral representative to the Municipal Council) and he seemed not to get interested or he simply refused to understand because he couldn’t imagine any project with the adult as plausible.

I once mentioned that growing old is fun. But that was during the mid-sixties when I was at the height of my involvement with the Inquiry Movement ( a youth movement in Alfonso, Cavite organized by me and was under my “moderatorship”). That was long ago and since then many things had happened. Many of my friends have died.

I was telling my daughter the other night (because she was complaining that she was not happy with her career). “Happiness depends on you. If you want to be happy you can be happy even if you are alone. You cannot demand everybody to adjust their lives to your attainment of happiness”. Now I am happy.

The other aging pain that creeps all over me is the pain of DETACHMENT. Sooner or later this will be necessary, for sooner or later and one by one my children will marry. They will form their own families. They will eventually decide to live in other houses of their own.

My wife and I will be left to our own selves. The occasion or the situation I hope will strengthen our unity but definitely we shall be missing our children.

I don’t expect them to be with us for no house is big enough for two families. I don’t expect them to be force to care for us. We don’t want to be dependent on our children. We want them to be free to tend their own families, rear their own children, correct their own mistakes as well as the mistakes they inherited from us or to apply whatever good thing they learned from us.

The balm of expectation however, easily relieves the pain of detachment. We shall be anticipating and expecting grandchildren – the living interest of our life time savings .

We are not sure how we are going to behave as grandparents but as much as possible we shall try not to meddle with their affairs unless on matters between life and death.

We shall probably be proud of our grandchildren and by the time we shall possibly be behaving like children our selves. Then that is the time we shall be qualified to enter the Kingdom of God.