On Dealing With Age

Many years ago, when my beloved mother was seventy-eight years old, and still working, I asked her what she did. Her reply astounded me.

"I look after old people, son," she said

"But mum, you're old!" I replied.

"No son, I am not old. The people I look after are ninety-five years of age. That is old."

The simple fact is that it did not matter what I or anybody else thought of my mother, in her mind, she was still young. And she was right, of course.

When my mother was sixty-five, she was working at the same residential care home, as a cook, for twenty residents. The committee for running the home wanted to retire my mother on the grounds of her age.

However, my mother knew the real reason. Two members of the committee were stealing from the kitchen supplies and suspected that my mother knew and was about to report them. In the end, that was all irrelevant.

When the residents heard about my mother's impending, enforced retirement they all threatened to leave the private home, As an excellent cook, the best they had ever had, my mother was extremely popular. The message the residents got across was "If she goes, we go with her." And so she stayed, for another thirteen years.

In the end, my mother had to retire due to losing her sight with macular degeneration, caused by diabetes. She soldiered on for another six years before her ageing body finally gave in at the age of eighty four.

I think the important thing to take from this is the need to keep active in your golden years, even if it means taking on a part-time job you do not really need for the money.

My father passed away at the young age of fifty-nine, way back in 1979. And although Dad's death was put down to multiple organ failure, I think what really killed him was he gave up on life. He seemed to have lost any sense of purpose, any burning desire to go on with his life.

My parents had eight children and when they all fled the nest, Mum and Dad found themselves at a loose end. I think women can more easily find a purpose due to their devotion to their children, even if they have all grown up.

When I was sixty years old, I was still my Mum's little boy. She still wanted to take care of me. And when I and my siblings moved away, well Mum simply found another way to care for others in that residential care home for the aged. As long as Mum could find somebody who was in need of care, even if they were twenty years older than her, she would be there for them.

And when Mum wasn't working, she took herself off on a trip to America for a few months. She had a wonderful time with people she had never, ever met before. Back at home, she used to keep her mind agile by doing crossword puzzles and socialising with people a lot younger than her.

The main thing is to keep both body and mind active. Keep that motor running, because if you ever switch that engine off, you might not be able to restart it that easily. It really is a case of 'Use it, or lose it.' Above all, enjoy those autumn years as much as you can. Remember, life is for living, don't ever give in. Or, as one of my all-time favourite actors, Morgan Freeman, famously said in the movie, 'The Shawshank Redemption', "Get busy living, or get busy dying."