Why we walk, Week 4: Because getting older is not a bad thing

Do you ever find yourself bemoaning how old you feel?

I do it all the time, and I’m only thirty. It’s ridiculous on two levels – on the one hand, I’m still young – likely more than half of my life is ahead of me. But the second and more important absurdity is that my underlying tone is negative; my statement is a couched slight toward the elderly.

Earlier this week I listened to the podcast ‘On Being’ andheard Krista Tippett speak with Xavier Le Pichon, a renown geophysicist and humanitarian. He spoke candidly about his experience caring for his mother who suffered from Alzheimer’s, and in that same segment mentioned the “all people are part of humanity…humanity is not complete if you have some parts out". (See below for the full quote.)

This week I’ve been reflecting on how Alzheimer’s disproportionately affects people who are older, in their last season of life. I’ve spoken often about how this isn’t just a fated illness that happens to our elderly, or a normal trajectory of aging for many. And yet, as I speak about Alzheimer’s I feel that this point needs to be reiterated, time and again.

Part of the challenge is that individuals with Alzheimer’s literally fade away in language and personality. It is easy, and almost default, to brush them aside as their memories fade – to shift to loving them in a paternalistic and patronizing way. (I so often hear in Alzheimer’s support groups “well they’ve just become so sweet and like a child.” Even the other day on Facebook I saw someone comparing a frustrated Alzheimer’s patient to the behavior of an angsty teen.) Our tendency to push individuals aside is not just because of their illness, but also because our culture views aging as something negative – something to avoid and dread.

As I write this it’s important to acknowledge and confess here that I am not just pointing at “society”. For those who have watched our Alzheimer’s walk videos, you’ve likely noticed how I sometimes speak to Mom as though she is younger or a child -- coaching her through the videos and helping her string together broken thoughts.

On my best days I am slowing down, helping her connect pieces, building up who she is and fighting for her to find her words and find herself. But on my worst ones I am chiding her, rushing her – impatient and eager to get out the door. I’m angry that she isn’t more capable, frustrated that she’s holding me back. I am just as prone to diminish and treat her in a childlike manner, and thus find that I have to constantly fight against the natural impulse to ignore and minimize my mother’s value as an older and sicker person.

While I’m continually grappling with my innate impulse to think of aging as a negative, Alzheimer’s also forces me to consider aging in stark contrast to the dread often associated with growing older. I am perpetually reminded in small ways of the richness and beauty of old age that has been stolen from my mother.

She and I have been robbed of the sacred season when parent and child have the potential to become good friends.

She can’t hope to watch her grandchildren grow or find fulfillment in imparting wisdom to them as they navigate their transition to adolescence and adulthood. 

I’ve tried to cram in a few bucket-list trips with her – to Greece and Spain and Maine. But I know that if my mother had a normal retirement, that she and I might have had years worth of annual road trips ahead of us. I often day-dream of the national parks tour-that-might-have-been  – camping under the stars, scaling mountains, and descending into valleys bursting with wildflowers.

So while I mourn the reality of our situation and the fact that Mom’s golden years have been shortened, I concurrently seek to fight back against the impulse to dismiss the elderly, the vulnerable. 

I try by seeking to counter this in the everyday moments.

Before I snap at Mom for asking me a question five times, I try remind myself of how scary it must be for her to lack a full grasp on time – yesterday and how it relates to tomorrow.

Before I get frustrated that I have to spend my only free hour of the day making my Mom’s monthly calendar or planning meals for such a big family, I try to remind myself of all the unexpected bursts of joy I get to catch each day; I get daily glimpses of Mom huddled in a tent with Asher in the living room or walking Moss until he dozes off to sleep.

Our family is attempting to remind ourselves that aspects of our life are sweeter and more abundant because we have such a mixed age group living under the same roof. And as we prepare for the walk, we are reminding ourselves and others that our society should exalt and honor individuals in every phase of life. We walk to remind ourselves that our aging mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, are no less cherished or important than our children. This week, we walk to remind ourselves of the inherent value of each soul – even those who are seemingly fading away.

We walk to bolster the spirit of discouraged Alzheimer’s patients – to assure them that memories aren’t just housed within our own minds, but that they are flowing through our community – embedded within stories carried by the neurons and synapses of their children - stored deep within the souls, the glorious vessels of their grandchildren – vibrant and dancing in the laughter that emerges when longtime friends gather to reminisce. 

We walk to remind Alzheimer’s patients – young and old - that they are still with us and will remain with us long after their memories can no longer be recalled within their own minds. We walk for them on Saturday, and we will carry them with us through the next generation and beyond.

We hope you’ll join us.

(Click here to access our walk page, where you can register, donate, or leave a word of encouragement for our team.) 

Human people are not adults in full possession of their means. Human people — it starts with babies, it continues with growing people, it continues with adults, it continues with older people, and with great age, and people who die. All of that is part of humanity, and humanity is not complete if you have some of these parts out.

And the way to build the society is the way to integrate these people in a way in which they can interact and each of them can find out that they have their place, that their life has a meaning, that they are needed by the others. So often I have found, for example, among very old people that they have the impression that they are not useful anymore. Nobody needs them. And then they want to go. They want to go. So there is this problem that the society cannot live by itself if it doesn't recognize that it's heterogeneous and highly diverse.