Chapter One
In Two Years
She Will Be Dependent
That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses,
in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.
For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:10
While some people hold the aging in high regard, most in
our society treat them with contempt. Consider the knowing
jokes and so-called wisdom about aging in our culture:
Growing old isn't so bad; it certainly beats the
alternative.
I'm not eighty-one years old, I'm eighty-one years young.
Growing old is not for sissies!
Attitudes and beliefs about aging vary about as much as
there are people in the world. Most of us, however, have at
least some attitude of defiance toward aging. We work against
the natural flow of physical deterioration with Botox injections,
antiaging potions and pills, and fashions that disguise and cosmetic
surgeries that mislead.
And yet, aging comes nonetheless.
The Fright of Aging
My first experience with aging scared me. As a young boy, I sat
in a small tar-paper house that, as a man, I could cross in four
strides. Its turn-of-the-century gaslights made a constant coughing
sound, as though your head were caught in a waterfall. A
potbelly stove supposedly warmed the meager abode, but poor
ventilation made the task almost impossible. I did not breathe
the thick, musty air as much as I had to swallow it.
The house belonged to my father's father, a man I would
come to respect and love. This orchard farmer from southwest
Colorado had experienced a hard life with his wife and twelve
children. He had only one arm, having lost the other in a railroad
accident during the Great Depression.
As I sat on the stoop of one room, he tried to coax me out
of my shyness into conversing and playing with him. "Come
here and let me hold you," he would say. He didn't know it
was not shyness but terror that kept me in the shadows. His
aging face, scraggly beard, and one arm unnerved me. It
seemed to my young eyes he had come straight out of the horror
shows that delighted my brothers and me. He looked sounnatural. My small mind could not imagine anyone could
ever end up in such shape. He looked and spoke spooky.
So I made up my mind as a five-year-old to avoid older
people. At times I couldn't avoid them-around Thanksgiving
or Christmas, for example-but as a whole, I could look the
other way and never feel concerned about their lives. Most of
all, I could remain safe from all that fear.
But at one point in my life I finally decided to look the
issue in the eye. I was in graduate school when I learned that
my mother's father lay dying of stomach cancer. He had written
me off when I was a kid. He didn't believe I had worked
as hard on his ranch as my older brothers had. He never called
me by my proper name and failed to attend my wedding. We
had an issue between us, to put it mildly. But because he was
my grandfather and I felt obligated to see him before he died,
I traveled with my wife and mother to see him one last time.
The weekend passed with little to note, but when the time
came to say a final good-bye, I felt lost and disoriented. I had
no words with which to bid him farewell. I had nothing honest
to say to him. So I let him pass me by, like a stranger with
whom I had brushed sleeves on the street. I did not feel that
I "blew my opportunity," like dropping a last-second pass that
could have won the football game; it was more like I'd never
even stepped on the field. To this day, I can remember my
total lack of effort. It shames me still.
"I will never let a moment like that pass by again without
at least trying to make connection," I later said to my wife.
As a budding family therapist, I knew that families everywhere
struggled with these issues. I felt a missionary zeal to
help these families avoid the despair and shame I felt. As a
result, I took a position as a personal care facility director
with a visionary friend of mine who was committed to create
progressive older communities. I had energy and zeal but
didn't know much about the process of aging. I did lots of
reading, but my most valuable teacher became the older
people themselves.
The very first older person I met from the facility was a
retired accountant named Dixon. Mucus drained from his hook
nose, rolling down in beads on the oxygen tubes attached to
his nostrils. His emphysema and respiratory problems surely
resulted from long years of smoking. Burn marks dotted his
furniture, and he reeked of greasy hair and stale body odor.
And he was mean. No one visited him, and we all assumed he
had verbally abused his family into a permanent cutoff. He
yelled at my staff, and he yelled at me, as if to proclaim that
his life was justified and the rest of us were idiots. He would
rant, "I haven't lived this long to have to put up with you kind
of people!" He was, in many ways, the living rule book on
how to age without grace.
This time I did not feel fear, although all his maladies did
cause me some discomfort. This time I felt embarrassment-embarrassment
to see a human being who had progressed to
such a sad shape he could no longer take care of basic body
functions or govern his angry emotions. He didn't seem to
mind the stuff dripping from his nose or care what anyone
else thought of him. Dixon was a man out of control, an
extremely weak man who still thought of himself as powerful.
How pathetic to see someone in that condition and in that
kind of quandary! I wanted him to cover himself with guile or
pretense in order to make the whole aging thing look better
than it actually did. At the same time, I felt welling up within
me my old tendency to run away. I wanted to withdraw-but
this time I stayed.
Ever since, despite the fear and embarrassment, I have
been willing to look straight-eyed and full-faced into aging.
What Is Aging?
What is this thing called aging? First and foremost, it is a
process of maturity as natural as taking one's first step. Yet a
special twist to aging makes it particularly difficult. These steps
we take are heading us toward our own demise.
Let me be clear. I do not believe that aging is one long,
depressing death march in which we inevitably do less and
less and wander more and more. We can be productive and
vital well into our sixties, seventies, eighties, and some of us,
into our nineties. No chronology magically states when we are
old enough to be identified as the "aging population." Some
people are old before they get out of their fifties; others are
still going strong long after most people their age have died.
We can remain vital for a long time.
In many ways, this is what we all desire-to be vital and
alive for a good long time and then die in our sleep. We love
to hear the stories of the ninety-one-year-old woman who
plays jazz piano in a club, or the eighty-six-year-old man who
completes a marathon. But these stories aren't really about
aging and don't well represent the aging process.
For the purposes of this book, when I speak about aging,
I mean that time of life when disease or wear has taken a toll
big enough to significantly diminish or remove entirely one's
ability to function in an independent manner. This is particularly
important to the family, because, by my definition, an old
person needs care.
This "being old" flies in the face of what most in the Western
world say they want out of life. Old means, at the minimum,
that we no longer get to hold on to our lives. It means
the aging process has advanced to such a point that we can no
longer pretend our physical lives will go on forever. It means
we are nearing death. We cannot hold on to our health, our
wealth, our precious belongings, or even our essential relationships.
At first blush, being old is not the opposite of young
but the opposite of life. Can anyone in the modern age actually
look at this process and not be afraid and embarrassed
and want to turn and run away?
I believe we can. In fact, I believe it's a must for anyone
who calls himself or herself a Christian. And if we willingly
look at the process of aging and being old, we will find the
essential elements of discipleship and the kingdom of God.
Who needs the process of aging? We do.
The Courage of Faith, the Humility of Love
We need aging because it is quickly becoming a defining and
sanctifying process in the lives of Christians. Whether we are
the older person or the caregiver of an older person, the aging
process forces us to recognize that we do not control our own
lives, that we have little say in how the future will progress,
and that any fruitful effort is born out of humility.
Of course, these ideas probably sound familiar, because the
Bible is chock-full of just such commands on what it takes to
become a man or a woman of God. Remember the words of
our faith-words we say we believe?
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in
humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you
should look not only to your own interests, but also to the
interests of others.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 2:3-5
Such a simple phrase-our attitudes should be the same as
that of Jesus. We commit to God, by faith, to remain his
through the thick and thin of life. We bind ourselves to God
in the same way the smith uses heat and strength to forge
metal to metal.
But God is also committed to us. He's committed to making
us into the image and attitude of Christ Jesus. And what is
that attitude?
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something
to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death-
even death on a cross!
Philippians 2:6-8
Very simply, God is committed to us becoming humble servants.
This is the way of the cross, the way of Jesus, and the
way all of us are to follow.
When a person in our family becomes old and requires
care, what we have only thought about suddenly becomes an
emotional reality. The sacrifice we make as a caregiver for an
elderly person requires strong character and the attitude of
Christ, and it's a very different thing from giving care to a child.
The child grows, becomes stronger, and interacts more and
more. Our sacrifice for our children no doubt teaches us much,
but it focuses on a young man or woman who is built for the
future. It is a hopeful humility. When we give care to an older
person, however, we sacrifice for one who grows weaker,
interacts less, and eventually will die. It is a service and sacrifice
for which we see very little-maybe even nothing. Caregiving
for an older person is purely about servanthood.
Surely, this kind of sacrificial giving is exactly what Jesus
Christ exercised in his great love for us. At this time in history,
God has created an opportunity for us to learn what it really
means to love one another. Caregiving means accepting the
humble place of servanthood. And the opportunity exists right
in our own families!
God molds us into Christlikeness through our own aging
processes. The older person in need of care must recognize that
life is coming to an end. There is no room for self-sufficiency
and defiance. Being old-really old-means finding the precarious
balance between doing what we can and relying on others
to fill in the gaps. This process of letting go and entrusting
ourselves to others demands a kind of courage made possible
only by faith.
Many older people in our society chant the mantra, "I don't
want to become a burden to my children." While this expression
is well-meant, it is, sadly, misguided.
When we speak such a phrase, most often we are really
saying we never want to turn over control of ourselves to
someone else. We certainly don't want them to have to serve
us! It is a step of tremendous faith to embrace the idea that
God uses our growing old and our caregiving to mold us into
humble and courageous servants.
This kind of faith is born of struggle because growing old,
as well as accepting and providing care, is anything but easy.
Not everyone will have to experience the full process, but for
those who do and thus are being trained by the great aging
task, it will bring forth the courage of faith and the humility of
love.
Caregiver and older person are not called to avoid burdens
for one another; we are called to lay them aside for the greater
burden of Christ.
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for
your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Matthew 11:28-30
If we are able to embrace growing old and caregiving as the
yoke of Christ, we will not try to minimize the impact the
process has on our lives. Instead, we will recognize that this
precious yoke that requires us to be humble and courageous
is meant to yield a unique gift-the gift of rest and peace. It
is not an easy gift, but for those who are willing to take it on,
it will bring peace.
Heroic to Humble
Caregivers and older people are not locked in a battle against
each other. We are in a dance, a dance that requires a balance
of intimacy of communication, humility of yielding to one
another, and courage to trust the process. We do not have to
do the dance perfectly; we just have to keep moving. If we
keep dancing, God will use our faithfulness to produce the
valuable fruits of peace, joy, and love.
In my own life, I did not immediately recognize how this
process built the amazing character and attitude of Christ
within me. But as I kept moving to the rhythm of aging, I
found out more about myself than at any other time in my life.
And the way of Christ became alive to me.
When I first began working at the personal care facility with
some eighty residents, I truly believed in what I was doing. I
wanted to learn from, minister to, and care for elderly people
and their families. I also felt compelled to work on issues
within my own family to resolve old wounds so we could
communicate and love better.
I felt I was "doing good" among people who needed me.
I felt like the Lone Ranger, who rode in heroically to help
people out of seemingly impossible messes. As I worked my
way through graduate school, I studied elderly people and
their families in clinical settings.
Continues.
