Dance with mortality
Finding joy in the age of loss is one of the great challenges of aging
PHILADELPHIA — Jerry Jackson, a retired accountant, described the accumulation of losses that accompany old age in concrete, mathematical terms.
When he and his wife moved to Rydal Park, a Jenkintown, Pa., retirement community, they joined an informal breakfast group of about 10. “They were a great bunch of people,” said Jackson, who is now 90.
Seven years later, “I’m still in the same chair as when everybody was here, but there are only two of us left, and we eat at different times.” Among the empty chairs is the one his wife of almost 70 years occupied. She died in May.
Coping with the deaths of friends and family members and the inescapable knowledge that time is limited for remaining peers is among the great emotional challenges of aging. “It sucks, period,” said Dorree Lynn, a 77-year-old psychologist in Charleston, S.C., who recently lost two close colleagues. “It starts in your 60s and gets worse.” Not everyone can overcome it, but those who are resilient enough to navigate this dance with mortality well can find wisdom and everyday joy made sweeter by the depletion of time.
Thelma Reese, 85, Bella Vista neighborhood of Philadelphia HISTORY: A retired professor of English and education, she co-authored The New Senior Woman and The New Senior Man and is working on another book about seniors.
WISDOM: She’s a believer in “doing things that take you out of yourself enough to widen your horizon a little” to improve mental health and prevent focus on the physical problems of old age.
It’s tough to lose old friends, either from death or growing apart. “You feel like you’re losing part of your history when they go.”
She is “extremely” conscious of her mortality and has been reading about psychologist Erik Erikson’s stages of development. His last stage (65 and up) is the age of integrity or despair. That resonates with Reese. Once you have a “sense of an ending,” she said, “it can either make you despair or make you think: ‘I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to get it done somehow.’”
Interviewing other seniors who are leading active lives helps her open up. “I’m interested in these people because they’re doing things I’m not. I admire them. I find it encouraging that they’re in the world.”
Scientific evidence that isolation and loneliness are harmful, both physically and emotionally, is mounting. “Being by yourself with the shades drawn and not interacting with other people can be deadly,” said Stephen Scheinthal, a geriatric psychiatrist who is chair of psychiatry at the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine.
And yet research also shows that, as a group, older people in decent health score higher on measures of happiness than young and middle-aged adults. This is true even though deaths are not the only losses the aged face. Many have also lost their independence and professional prestige. Friends and family members have moved away.
What allows some people to thrive emotionally at a time when losses are piling up? How do they find the courage to care when they have so much experience with heartbreak?
The answer, according to experts and older people themselves, is not as simple as “you have to keep making new friends,” although that is a common part of the equation. It also helps to embrace the idea that life can have meaning and purpose at any age, to treasure the people who are left, to cultivate gratitude and seek personal growth. A sense of humor is invaluable. Curiosity helps, too.
Virginia Sale, 90, Rydal Park retirement community
HISTORY: Sale was a Presbyterian minister like her husband. He died in 2015 of Alzheimer’s disease. They had lived and worked together for almost 60 years. She has outlived most of her longtime friends.
WISDOM: During her husband’s nine-year illness, she learned to find positives, even in their suffering. “What I discovered was that, in this daily struggle for both of us, we learned how much we loved each other,” she said.
After years of counseling others, Sale was surprised by how traumatic her husband’s death felt. She realized she had lost a part of herself that had belonged to the marriage. “When that bond is broken, there is part of you that’s missing, not just the loss of the person, the loss of the identity,” she said.
At 90, she asked herself, “‘Well, Virginia, you’re old. What are the possibilities?’”
Marc Agronin, a Miami geriatric psychiatrist and author of “The End of Old Age,” said that more of his clients in their 80s and 90s still have friends from childhood around now than in the past because people are living longer. But, he said, the concept of loss has also changed with modern life. Families are smaller and more scattered. Friends may also have moved.
This can all sound pretty depressing to younger people, but Agronin said many of us make a crucial error when we imagine how it will feel to be older. We forget, he said, that “we will be different people.” Young Bin Lee, 81, Medford
HISTORY: Raised in both North and South Korea, Lee came to the U.S. for advanced medical training in 1964. He had planned to go back to Korea, but his wife, also a
doctor, got cancer, and they stayed. She died in 2000. Two good friends died this year. He works four half-days a week as a neuropsychiatrist and is active in his church and Korean organizations. He loves opera. He has had heart surgery and a kidney transplant. His kidney came from his second wife, Eulie, whom he married 10 years ago.
WISDOM: Asked about grief, Lee quoted a character from the opera Nabucco, who said, “Lord, give us the courage to endure suffering.” Notice, Lee said, the character did not say, “Lord, do not give us any suffering.”
Keeping busy and maintaining a younger mind-set help him live with loss. “I like to think I’m still in my 50s and 60s. At that age, you work hard. You take care of your children and you think about your grandchildren and try to study and learn more. That kind of lifestyle, I like that.”