Coming To Grips With Aging

Since my 70th birthday, I’ve been consumed with a fear of aging. I wondered: Is it a fear of dying or of losing my mojo? Here’s how it crept up on me and how I came to grips with this new reality.

When I was fifty, we bought our retirement home in Beaufort NC, a coastal village. The world was my oyster. I entered a phase of life where I could gradually transition from a career I loved to new passions and hobbies with time to develop them. Since then, I have stayed fit, kept a comely appearance, and enjoyed cooking delicious meals for family and friends.

I nurture old friendships and covet new ones of all ages.

Photos: One of my oldest friends, Sally Brett, and new Friends, the James and Leslie Costa family.

Years ago many of my friends were older than me, but lately I have noticed that the women I hang out with are mostly ten or twenty years younger than myself. One reminder here, another there, and I reached the stunning observation that I am closer to the age of my friends’ mothers, who require assistance and daughterly oversight than I am to my younger friends.

After turning 70, my husband and I considered the need to downsize to a more manageable house and garden, allowing more time for avocations, less for upkeep. It raised the question of where we would live and the certainty that we want to “age in place” in this coastal community, which attracts the people and coastal activities we enjoy so much. What started as a reflection on how we want to spend our next twenty years revealed the truth: We’re not planning for the next phase of life, but the final stage of life.

The realization that strangled me caused little angst in my husband who has always lived tackling the day’s “projects” as evidence aplenty that he is still the “same old soul” – clever, kind, and industrious – starting each day with the apparent motto, “the best way to live is to live,” and ending each day with peaceful sleep.

A woman in our community was still young at sixty, growing and selling organic vegetables with a mission to create a healthier community and a sustainable planet. Consumed with cancer and given two weeks to live, she told each hospice visitor, “I am going to fight this because there is still so much left I want to do with my life.”

This news struck me with several reflections that I may one day need to apply to my own life. When faced with terminal illness there is time to fight it with every method possible. When given a prognosis of a short time left to live, it is time to seek closure. Reflect on life and good deeds, and tell those you love how much they have meant to you. While admirable to be driven by mission until the final breath, it is also sad if opportunity is missed to come to a place of peace about the life you were given and the people who mattered in your journey.

In some ways I am faced with the same issues. I have so much left I want to do in life but, yikes, I also have to face closure, the end of my life, which is approaching at choking speed. Like an embarrassment of riches, I am mortified to worry that I might have only twenty years left to live when I have family and friends whose life was cut short at age 30, 40, 50 and 60. Even a ten- year-old with so much promise.

While writing this piece, my treasured friend, Caryle, passed away after seventeen years battling a rare form of Myeloma. It pains me so much to say these words that they fall like blood from a wound onto this page. My heart is broken. I will miss her wit, political jokes, reading list, and giving heart.

A few days before she died I sent her a note about something that happened to me twenty years ago when I was working in Benin, sharing a meal with rural Imams, who asked me not to “chat” during lunch so they could appreciate their food as they ate. I live in a society where eating is a casual form of socializing; for the Imams, eating a hot meal was a rarity to be savored and appreciated in silence.

Caryle was the friend who understood what I have learned from people far less fortunate than me, people who see the world through a different lens. She made me laugh every time I received a text. I will reach to the stars to find her.

And to the painted buntings who visit my garden on rare magical moments. A couple of months ago, Caryle and I scheduled a Sunday morning call. I brewed a coffee and went to the back porch where a bird feeder hangs inches from the screen and my chair. I told her about my husband’s efforts to lure the buntings to our garden, as they had come in abundance to our former house two blocks away.

While my friend and I were talking, I was stunned to see a bunting arrive at our feeder, the first one I’d seen. Caryle told me that birds are her totem and to think of her when the buntings come.

In all the social justice causes she believed in and acted upon, she was an inspiration. She accomplished many good deeds in her life but her greatest wok was raising her daughter Natalie as a single mother. When I talk to Natalie, I see Caryle in Phase II. This reminds me why good parenting is the most exquisite investment.

Photos: Caryle and baby Natalie; Natalie and Caryle on a final outing; Natalie and Lexie paddle-boarding in Tampa Bay. You may remember a previous and very funny story about Caryle rescuing Lexie from the Bay.

It comforts me to know that my children will also take something of me into the future after I am gone.

Caryle’s passing reminds me of the things that people will remember about you, and therein lies some direction for living. Her passing is a model for how to die. Our final conversations allowed me to witness her elegant way of coming to terms with death and provided a model for dying. She calmed my fear of dying. She held my hand more than I held hers in these final days.

So now I return to thoughts about living. How well I am using the time I’ve been granted.?

We moved back to the U.S. full time in 2010 and for the next seven years I shifted to part-time work, allowing more time for my avocations to take root and flourish.

In 2020 I published a novel, The Drawing Game, traveled to Mexico to immerse myself in art, helped to form a book group and an “Artist Breakout Group” with some of the most generous, interesting, smart and creative women in my community. I was invited to join an esteemed writing group bursting with talent. I dabbled in hobbies – creative writing, reading, gardening, art, dance, music, cooking, beach-combing, swimming, and travel- and savored retirement.

Photos: Six of nine members of our book group - Barbara, Elizabeth, Me, Jill, Jane and Penny. Two members of our writing group, Susan Schmidt and Barbara Garrity-Blake

My painter friend Brenda Behr sees art in everything. When I cook for her, she stages and photographs the dish before we can eat. She encouraged me to write a memoir about my experiences living and working abroad. She suggested that I write about our collections of friends, recipes and artifacts, and my life-long passion for gathering people around my table over southern and international cuisine.

Photo: My son, Chas and his partner, Katerina, came up with the idea to create a scrapbook of all the blogs I wrote in the first year and gave it to me for my 70th birthday. They each wrote personal notes in the introduction. Here is part of Chas's note.

A lifestyle book appealed to me far more that writing a linear memoir, first this, then that, moving from childhood to old age. I wanted my writing to capture the wonderful things that happen each day, and the way they cause me to reminisce about things from the past. So I decided to write this blog, Deborah’s 3 Muses, where I allow daily life experiences to be enriched by my past experiences, revealing lessons for living. I’ve penned over fifty blogs since 2020 and shared them with friends and strangers’ kind enough to read and respond as I hoped, “The messages in the story connected with my own life story and gave pause for joy, reflection and inspiration.”

While I am pleased with the way my life is unfolding, I am frightened about the future. Frankly, I worry about losing my mojo.What do I mean by mojo? The Cambridge Dictionary states that it's a quality that attracts people to you and makes you successful and full of energy. It’s having personal charm, confidence and influence over others.

One way that people lose their mojo is when their family takes it from them. I have a friend whose mother is suffering from memory loss so my friend and her sibs are trying to convince their mother to give up her condo filled with a lifetime of meaningful objects and move to a small room in a care facility. Still feisty with mojo her mother flatly refuses. Her children suffer the conflict between two choices. Should we insist that she move where she can be closely monitored? [Giving her children peace]. On the other hand, if she forgets to take her medicine in a home she loves, is she better off than living in a facility that monitors and directs her every move? [Going out on her own terms].

There is a dread of children becoming ones parent and snuffing out ones mojo, as in the novel, All Souls at Night. I know. I did it to my own mother and suffer regret. I have to think about how I want to be cared for or end my life when faced with terminal illness or loss of cognition, and make my wishes known to my husband, children, medical practitioner, and lawyer. So, I can put that worry aside by taking certain actions.

I’ve been reading up on how to sustain my mojo for a happy old age. Here is what I’ve learned: If your mojo has gone missing take it as a chance for pause and reflection. A lull in energy and enthusiasm might be a sign to take stock of what’s going on for you. Get physical, set exercise goals, address stress, practice positive self-talk, see your friends, join a class or a group and make new friends, live a healthier life style and make a changes in yours. OK, I do all that, but the angst remains.

Not long ago, I woke from a dream that was attempting to set me straight.

In the dream, my friend, Stephanie Caplan, came to town, which always makes me happy. She has a perfect face with kind, laughing eyes and a 300-watt smile and laugh. We became friends during the many times she and husband, Jason, rented our Rumley House Airbnb. They fell in love with Beaufort and after several years of renting our apartment, they bought a charming condo in town. Since purchasing, they have rented it out most of the time to pay off the mortgage. When they can grab a weekend to come, she lets me know and we get together.

In the dream, Stephanie told me that they were moving to Beaufort full time. She said she had a gift for me. I expected a box with wrapping paper and a bow, but she handed me a colorful file folder. Inside, I found several pages explaining little known secrets of gardening. In my dream, we walked out to my garden and she showed me how to turn an urn (symbol for funeral urn?) into a time capsule, putting objects that matter to me, that say something about my life, creating a work of art, but also I suppose a memorial of my life. In the dream, Stephanie left and I stood in the garden overwhelmed with a sense of fulfillment.

I had been thinking of the word “fulfillment” after watching the last episode of Extraordinary Attorney Woo on Netflix. In this show all the troubling pieces were worked out in the most wonderful way. Attorney Woo, a brilliant young woman on the autism spectrum, had done something very brave and because of this everyone around her started behaving in a different way focusing on what is important, doing the right thing even when it is very hard, and prioritizing love for family, partners and friends. In the end Attorney Woo was physically skipping from her room to her dad’s diner. She told him she had discovered a new emotion and she named it “fulfillment.”

It was interesting how the lessons of this final show were applied to my own life in this dream. I have wasted too much time thinking about being old rather than living every moment as if it is my last, thinking about life not death, thinking about what matters in life, not preoccupation with what looms out of my control.

When I told Stephanie about my dream, she said this:

Oh, Deborah! This makes me want to cry...I'm honored that I came to you in your dream and was somehow helpful. So VERY cool! Thank you for sharing this wonderful story with me, especially your embracing fulfillment and spending time doing and thinking about what matters. When I think of you, the last thing that would come to mind is aging! You are vibrant and ever-in-motion, doing all sorts of interesting learning and networking and community building. Plus, you are beautiful and fit, an inspiration! Anyway, I hope the part of your dream about our moving to Beaufort full time comes true one day! In the meantime, we'll settle for having fun with you when we can come.

My dream brought back memories of my first friends in Beaufort, who were twenty years older than me when we bought our Beaufort house in 2002 where we spent summers and winters overseas. My first four Beaufort friends -Betty Lou, Nan, Bet and Kak- helped me to settle into my community and have fun, feel connected.

Betty Lou, Nan and Bet were a tight group of liberal-minded, sassy, stylish, humorous, and adventurous friends. I first ran into stunning Betty-Lou on the dairy aisle of Food Lion wearing a white linen shirt framing her glamorous head of thick white hair, huge black glasses, and her 11 mm pearls. When she found out we had a mutual friend, grand-daughter of Oscar Hammerstein, she welcomed me into her “group.”

The group included Hugh Cullman (who generously funded his wife's travel adventures with her best friend, mostly on camel back across deserts), Betty Lou Ellis (You name a celebrity, she knew them!), Nan Cullman (an opera singer and adventurer) and Mike Ellis (concert pianist who ran the Buck's County Theater for many years, co-produced a Hammerstein musical, and was president of the international magician's society) and Bet Bulla (a beauty queen with a brain!) I am on the left and Charles is at the head of the table.

That afternoon I found a gift on my front porch– a loaf of homemade sour dough bread, a pound of French butter (which definitely didn’t come from Food Lion) and an invitation: I’ll have a little cocktail party and invite the people you’ll want to know (including Nan and Bet) and those you’ll need to know (won’t mention names). Betty-Lou and Nan taught me how to do old age well by flaunting the numbers and going out in high style and laughter.

Fortunately, Bet, who was ten years younger than Betty Lou and Nan, still lives three doors from the house we owned for twenty years. I don’t see her as much since I moved, but when I do, I realize that she is the ultimate role model for how I want to live in my nineties.

Still preparing French cuisine, dressing elegantly, reading widely, gardening, keeping the paint and décor of her historic home as fresh as a new home owner, and entertaining her children and grandchildren who adore her and visit regularly.

Another inspirational role model, Osey Caroline Wheatley Davidson (Kak), is featured in the cover photo and above. Kak grew up in a big house on the corner of Front and Marsh streets, same block as our historic home. After her marriage, she moved to Jacksonville, Florida, and raised three children. Her husband, now deceased, and her children all grown, she returns to Beaufort each summer to enjoy the town she holds dear, returning to Florida when autumn chills arrive.

Since we moved off her block, I haven’t seen as much of her as in years’ past. But I knew where to find her. She will be on her front porch rocker where she reigns, at age 101, as the “Queen of Beaufort.” She will be entertaining all the neighbors and inquisitive tourists with hilarious stories about the glories of growing up in a small town where everyone knows your name (and whereabouts).

I realized that Kak could shake some sense into me about my worrisome fear of aging. This is a woman who wore skirts over the knee and one inch heels well into her 80’s. When I told her I had fallen into the doldrums since turning 70 she laughed hard. “I was such a young thing at 70.” When she stopped laughing I asked her for some coaching on the subject.

Kak’s words of wisdom:

First thing each morning, I reach up and see if my hair net is in place. It’s all about me. Self-respect. People don’t admit it but it is.

I have enjoyed my life from the day I was born. I don’t plan the day, I just expect something interesting to happen and it usually does.

You have to have a sense of humor. I make myself the brunt of my jokes.

I retired from my job with Social Services when I was 72. My whole life, I tried to see things from other’s point of view. I always find excuses for people. I think what might have caused them to be that way. I give money to shelters and causes that other people don’t. I donate money to their discretionary fund. There are always special cases and needs that a pastor or community agency sees but there is no money ear-marked to help. I delivered meals on wheels into my nineties. At age ninety, my children restricted me to delivering meals on the ground floor.

When I turned 100, I thought how lucky I am to live this long. I have three children and fifteen grandchildren. My granddaughters planned this big to-do for my 100th birthday but it was during the time of COVID and the venues were restricted to twenty-five people. So my family rented two venues and I went from one to the other. Kind of like the president for his inaugural balls.

When my children were growing up, I taught them to reason. It was like a game. I’d present different scenarios and ask them what they would do. For example, suppose you were with two friends in a drug store and you saw one of them shoplift a tube of lipstick, what would you do? That way they were prepared for life. I didn’t have to lay out a bunch of rules, they realized ways they should behave through reasoning. My children love and respect me. That is what really matters. At the end of life your friends are all dead. Your children are all that you have. If you don’t nurture your relations with your children, then you are all alone in old age.

One of my granddaughters lives in London. Last February, when I was 101, my daughter Corinne and I went to visit her. When I visit, I stay two or three months and we travel all over the country. I was in the north of England ready to board the plane back to London. When I arrived at the check-in desk, the attendants were in quite a stir. They thought an infant was traveling alone because the Airline Manifest listed a passenger born in “22” There was no place for me to write 1922 instead of 2022. They were so excited to have a 101-year-old-passenger on board that they announced it on the plane and passed out wine to celebrate.

It has been very interesting being 101. Age is just a number. You are no older than you want to act. Each year there has been something that stands out.

I still have my house in Jacksonville and gather there when family visits, but last year I moved into an assisted living apartment when I am not traveling or visiting family. I did not want to move in with my children. They have their own lives and I want to remain independent as long as I can.

I am down to the wire. [Note: Kak paused on dying for just a second, then bounced right back to how she plans to live.] I used to get facials once a month. I don’t know why I stopped. I’m going to start this back when I return to Jacksonville. Anything that gets me with people.

One of the final things Kak told me is this:

If you have older people living, it holds the family together. That’s an incentive to keep living. A gift of sorts to my family. They all come together because of me.

Talking with Kak helped me to see that aging well is like “shopping from your closet.” The concept goes like this: At the start of the season take out old clothing. Try to see how a garment can be updated by mixing and matching with things you already have. That way you can see the gaps and know that if you do purchase a few new things they are well chosen without waste. Appreciate what you already have, using creativity not lavish spending, to improve your wardrobe. Doing things in a deliberate, thoughtful way.

In a nutshell, age well by reviewing all the good things you have. Stir up your routine, do old things in new ways. Find a few new friends but nurture the old ones, putting different people together who might share interests, networking. Don’t allow yourself to get down on your life due to restrictions beyond your control. Instead seek renewal in the things you can control.

Buddhist teacher and author, Pema Chodren, takes this view of old age, “You no longer have to devote time to finding out what you are, you are just free to be whatever you want to be, inimpeded by the incessant needs of others. You somehow grow into the fullness of your humanity, from your own character, become a proper person."

I have entered new stage in life. Worries about old age provided me opportunity to take stock of where I am and how I want to use the time left to me. How am I spending each day? What are my priorities and passions? What is missing?

From ages sixty to seventy, I lived like I was on a ten-year vacation, no obligations, no hurry, giving myself time to develop my interests and new friends. Every day was spent doing things I love just for me. It was a luxurious time without any of the responsibilities I carried in years past. It was fun. Perhaps a bit frivolous, causing a creeping guilt that my interests are mostly focused on things I love to do, with little energy spent to allay the suffering of others. Too much “me” and not enough “others.”

Now that I’ve taken this fear of aging out of the closet, given it a good dusting, and settled it into a patch of morning sun, I can see that my life is made up of interesting and loving people, and things I enjoy doing. I have such a good life and every day arrives better than the last. My interests are ones that can be carried with me as I age. I am blessed that this is so. I can see one shortfall. I am too much of a sybarite living in pursuit of pleasure, not enough altruist.

Photo: My sister, Krista, giving hot meals to the community in Marshallberg, after a hurricane.

I am well aware that many people in my community struggle with poor health, poor relations, loneliness and financial strain. There are ways that my skills honed over a lifetime might be used to bring some needed help and joy to them. As I remember from my college psychology courses, with a nod to Erik Erikson, that the final phase of life is best experienced as one of generativity, using knowledge, wisdom and compassion to give back what you have been fortunate to receive.

Bertrand Russell, noted that growing older contentedly is a matter of being able “to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.”

Choden, Erikson, Russell and Kak Davidson offer sage advice for the final chapter in a life well-lived. Accepting that there are fewer years ahead than behind and enjoying the blessing of each new day for learning, loving, growing and giving.

Over the years I came to realize that the things I feared most, when surmounted, brought me the greatest returns. Writing this piece has helped me to see that my fear of aging, if surmounted, holds open a door to wondrous and fulfilling years ahead. And when the time comes, to close out my life with dignity and peace, I hope to hold the hands of my dear, sweet children who taught me how to love, and my husband, Charles, who gave me the world on a platter.

Photo Credits:

All photos taken by the author except for two photos of Caryle found on her memorial site, and the photo of Stephanie.