Growing older has its moments
Getting old is scary. With little or no warning, I reached that “milestone” in my life. I passed the years of not telling my age to being called “senior adult.” (I recently read an article written in 1935 and we were called “old folks”).
We hear a lot of jokes about old age, but it’s no joking matter. One of Mom’s favorite Bible verses was Psalm 90:10, which stated the days of our years are three-score years and ten. She felt each year after 70 was a gift. I never knew old people when I was growing up. Or at least was never around the crippling effects of old age. I never saw anyone confined to a wheel chair or fed someone in bed. My grandfather lived to be over 100 and died in a nursing home — which he hated. My grandmother also died in a rest home. But I never was around them much.
If we grow old, we’ll eventually break a bone, so statistics show. After spending three weeks in rehab with my husband as he recuperated from his broken hip, seeing all those old people and their physical problems, I understand more about our bodies giving out. It doesn’t mean I like it any better, but I know it happens. As one lady said, “The alternative to old age might not be so bad after all.”
I gained a new appreciation for caregivers, from the nurses to the ladies who kept the building so clean. They were cheerful and professional. I liked the attitude of one who said, “I’m here because I care about these people. I’d rather work here than in any other medical field.”
Jerry and I both liked the lady who cleaned his room each day. If I had to work in a place like that, hers is the job I’d want — keeping floors clean, picking up trash. I’d take those chores any day over giving shots in the rumps of old, sick people. One aide even made bath a fun time when she joked with Jerry that she couldn’t wait to see him naked.
Visits from friends, neighbors and family meant so much. They were all concerned for my husband. Yet, seldom did someone ask me how I was doing, and I didn’t receive many visitors. But the Lord was my Shepherd, offering comfort and caring. I meditated a lot on Psalm 23, and was glad, as a child, my mother made me memorize the entire chapter. This was the first time those words came alive. In the midst of turmoil, He led me through stillness. I felt led to calmness amid chaos. As Rick Warren wrote in “The Purpose Driven Life,” “Your most profound and intimate experiences of worship will likely be in your darkest days.”
Even if one isn’t a worrier (I don’t think I am), it is still scary. The scariest thing is not knowing how bad it can get. The words of a song kept running through my mind, “I’ll go with you, with you, all the way.” I realized no matter how bad life might get, we don’t have to go it alone. “I’ll never leave you, or forsake you,” were words from my Lord that gave me hope and peace. I knew I would never be abandoned. That thought makes me giddy with joy at times. I love Psalm 72, the chapter for old age, where David prayed, “Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.” And verse 18, “Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not.” God was my strength and joy in the midst of uncertainty. He daily restored my soul. I don’t have to fear what might come in the future as I (we) grow older.
••• Editor’s note: Marie Wiggin Putman, and her husband, Jerry, live in Little Flock. A native of Benton County, she writes a monthly column for the Westside Eagle Observer. She and her husband are members of the Pea Ridge Historical Society.