Aging: Evidence of Mercy
July 10, 2017
I’ve been thinking about getting older. It’s a decade-marker for me, and my mother is now marching into her 90s. The American culture creates a picture of vibrant youth with joyous beach parties, smooth skin and beautiful clothes. Generally, pictures of older adults are featured in medication ads on TV who need everything from cancer medicine to bowel treatments to sexual additives! Getting old is complicated and certainly mental health is implied. Depression and opioid addiction grip the young and the old.
I am reminded of Psalm 90: “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away” (vs. 10). This doesn’t sound as if life is rosy or easy. It acknowledges that life is indeed full of “toil and trouble”—and there is little that we can do about that.
Maybe the longer we live the more we face—and accomplish. Maybe the 80 year olds have made more changes, more adaptations than the young. Maybe the long lives are symbols of resiliency and hope.
As my mother moved into nursing care from assisted living in the past week, she is experiencing a lot of losses: short-term memory, familiar daily routine, usual caregivers. On the other hand, she is gaining a higher level of care, more attention from staff, and certainly a better quality of life. I cringed when I saw the size of the smaller nursing wing’s room compared to her comfortable two-room assisted living apartment. However, my sense of loss is, for her, a sense of relief. The smaller space is less to manage. The smaller space means a sense of closeness and security. Fewer things mean less demand. “I really like my new room.” I experience grace and gratefulness.
Is living to 80 or 90 only toil and trouble? How can people with behavioral issues cherish their days? Those who experience the community of care will, undoubtedly, do better than those who are isolated and abandoned. The church, the family, the hospital, the nursing home, the mental health clinic can all be places of healing and hope. They are places of hugs, smiles, appropriate interventions and, most of all, places of care.
For those with faith that God’s cosmos can hold the very young and the very old, getting older is just evidence of the vastness of mercy amidst tough times. For those who have suffered and survived and then thrived, getting older is a miracle. For the Psalmist, there is the final prayer: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days” (v. 14). For us, may there be a community that cares and then holds us and those we love as we celebrate our birthdays.
Rev. Dorothy Nickel Friesen, a former Prairie View board member, is a retired pastor and denominational minister.