WORDS OF WISDOM
In a new series, we look at the good, the bad and the funny side of getting older. Emma Clifton talks to seven residents from the Logan Campbell Retirement Village about everything from freedom and friendship, to love and loss, to keeping active and healthy, and even the purpose of life. This is the irst of a three-part series. What’s the best thing about getting older?
DENISE: There is more time to do all the things you want to do. Rather than having time restraints: you have to be here at 2pm, you have to be here at 6pm. It’s more relaxing, particularly if you’ve worked all your life. All of a sudden you can almost chuck your appointment book away and just keep the social pages, because that’s all there is!
COLLEEN: I think living life at a slower pace of your own choosing – that’s it really.
CYNDI: Yes, I agree! It’s wonderful. I can go to golf every day if I want to – I haven’t got a big house to look after any more. I come and go as I please.
Do you feel your age?
EMMA: We don’t think we’re old – we don’t think we look old. I don’t feel old, because I’m still healthy and I can still do whatever I want to do, like walking, shopping, cooking. I’m doing everything. But then I’m lucky – some people aren’t so lucky.
COLLEEN: I showed my granddaughter Isabella my old family photos, and there was a photo of me when I was about 16. And she said, “Oh Grandma, you were once a girl.”
Her face lit up.
CYNDI: They can’t visualise it – that you were once young, and you wore these togs, and you went to parties and you had fun. I don’t feel old at all! I’m raring to do things. I don’t like people saying, “Well, at our age you’ve got to settle down.” It’s not about being “our age” at all. I’ve done the Otago rail trail, I had a wonderful time. I went up in a hot air balloon once – I don’t like heights, and at one stage I had my eyes shut. And there was an 85-year-old in the basket with us, happily snapping photos, saying, “Oh, isn’t this wonderful!”
BOB: I don’t feel like I’m 81. I have great trouble believing it, but I keep being told that I am, so I accept it.
What have you learned about resilience?
EMMA: My daughter was 38 when she died, and left us with two little boys: 14 months old and ve years old. I had my mother living next door who was quite sick, and I was working full time, so it was a hard time for us. But we learnt – and we did it. And we still had the boys’ dad. We had the boys every week for two days, for about three or four years. The biggest thing I learnt was it’s not what happens to you – because you can’t change that – it’s how you deal with it. You have to keep living – she’s died, but you have to keep living, and of course we had the little boys to focus on. We had to keep going on for them.
COLLEEN: I got over a few things by nursing and seeing people who were worse off than I was. When I was 19, my brother drowned while on a
shing trip at Lake Karapiro; he was a week off turning 22. Only two
years after that my mother died, and I was just 23. I had sisters but I missed my brother, so when I had sons of my own I think I spoiled them to death! But you can’t live in the past. My little granddaughter was looking at family photos and I showed her my brother and she said, “Does it make you sad, Gran?” and I said, “There’s one thing, Isabella – he’ll never get old. He’ll always look like this picture.” Life’s a learning lesson. You can always think when you’re younger that you wish you were a bit wiser, but do you ever get to the stage where you know everything? I don’t think so!
What do you think is the purpose of life?
EMMA: To be a good person and enjoy every minute you can. Because you’ve only got one shot at it – it’s not a rehearsal, it’s the real thing and we all have to make the most of it. There’s no use saying, “I wish, I wish, I wish.” That’s one of the reasons we moved into the retirement village – there’s no use saying, “Oh, I wish I’d done this 10 years ago.” ANDY: Keep active. What concerns me about the youth of today is everywhere you go, they’re always [mimes typing on a cellphone]. It’s all about distraction, you go to a café and they’re in a group, all on their iPhones. They’re not going out and doing things – that circulation of blood is so important in the body and the mind.
WAYNE: I believe it’s relationships with your fellow human beings. And I do worry… although even the old people when we were young would criticise our lifestyle – we liked Elvis Presley and what-not. So nothing has changed there. But I do worry that I’ve got grandchildren that spend their life on their phones. Social media seems to have taken over to the point where it seems the minority has told the majority what to do. BOB: For me, the purpose of life is love. I love the job I’m doing. And I know the power of love, and I know the opposite, and I know where it goes. It’s as simple as that. So I’m very fond of love.
“For me, the purpose of life is love. I know the power of love, and I know the opposite. I’m very fond of love.”