About the ageing experience

It’s not often that those who are actually experiencing the ageing process get a chance to explain how they feel about it.

So we thought we’d talk to some of them. After all, there is nothing like experience to teach us about living.

Each of the seniors below were asked the same five questions.

1. What special preparation did you make for your older years?

2. Looking back, what would you have changed or done differently when you were younger?

3. With your experience, what advice would you give to young people today?

4. How do you feel about holidays, particularly the Christmas holidays?

5. Is there any comment/statement you would like to make about getting older?

Four seniors, one man and three women, responded. Here are their stories.

Miss Mirdell

Miss Mirdell is in her 80s. She is of Chinese descent and is healthy and still quite active. She reports having made no preparation at all for her life, much less her older years. She wasn’t allowed to. She spent her childhood not playing but working in her parents’ various retail shops. In her day, the children did what the father said and her father, in traditional Chinese fashion, dictated that girls didn’t need to go to school, but should be prepared for marriage. In retrospect, she thinks she would have demanded to be given a say in her own life’s direction. It was only after her children were nearly grown that she began her education, from scratch, in her late 30s (remember she had not gone to high school) and realised her dream of becoming a dietitian. Miss Mirdell loves holidays like Christmas and loves to see people enjoying themselves with family, “which Jamaicans are very good at”. She wishes to advise the young people to have an aim in view. A career ensures that you can provide for yourself without depending solely on others. Her comment: “I never feel old, I don’t think old and I have proved that the old song is right, ‘fairy tales can come true when you’re young at heart’.”

Miss Shirley

Miss Shirley, now in her 70s and retired from the civil service, carried out meticulous preparation for her older years. She has a pension, but also took out savings and insurance plans which she knew would help her cope with the challenges of her older years. She would not change anything about her life, she says, but advises young persons all the time to make financial and other preparations for the senior years so that they are not a burden on their children or others. Miss Shirley loves Christmas, especially keeping in touch with family members – her grandchildren are a special joy – and friends, including former coworkers. She says she loves people and they are always visiting as her door is open from as early as 6:00 am. The neighbours, the children, the garbage men, the postman, the gardeners, all are welcome.

She says, about ageing, that you just need to prepare for it properly and have people around you. “When you love people, they love you back. Do it with everybody,” Miss Shirley advises.

Mass Oxford

Mass Oxford, a sprightly, humorous gentleman in his late 70s, says he tried real hard to prepare himself for his senior years and thinks he succeeded pretty well. Such preparation as making financial arrangements to pay for his care and medication, he says, is very important to his peace of mind. He wouldn’t change anything about his life as he thinks he “did pretty well, thank God.” He thinks young people should, “apply yourselves to whatever you want and don’t allow misfortune to turn you off. If you fall, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep going. Falling is not the end of the world. Keep focused on your goal and rely on the Creator and you will make it.”

Mass Oxford thinks that the reason behind holidays, especially Christmas, is good but they have been commercialised out of all proportion, so with the madness on the roads he tries to stay off the roads. About ageing, he says: “You don’t believe you will get older and you are surprised when you are there. But being there is testimony that you have been doing something right in taking care of yourself. Work hard at your job, he advises, but don’t let it master you, you must master it and when it is time to retire, do it and enjoy the freedom to do what you want.”

Miss Catherine

Miss Catherine, in her early 70s and confined to a wheelchair for many years, ruefully admits to having made no preparation at all for her older years. She was just too busy trying to survive, having had her first child in her teens.

In retrospect, she would definitely have married someone different than the person she did because she says, “I wasn’t treated like a wife but like a slave. I couldn’t leave right away because of the children, but I left eventually when the children were grown up enough.” She thinks young people should try to learn a skill and get as much education as they can. Try to be independent she advises and please try to find out as much as you can about someone before getting involved in a long-term commitment like marriage. The main thing though is to put God first and allow the Father to control your life. When God is in control you are led in the right direction all the time. Miss Catherine thinks that a holiday, especially Christmas, is not a commercial thing and we should stop celebrating it as such. It is after all about the birth of Christ. At Christmastime we should show more love and generosity, especially to those less fortunate than ourselves.

On ageing she commented that getting sick and being in pain as you get older is very depressing. Dealing with the pain and effects of the illness would definitely make life less depressing for older persons, especially if they didn’t plan to be dependent on anybody and become a burden to them.

There you have it from the horses’ mouths. These seniors have lived and are living the future of many of us. They seem more concerned with their emotional than physical well-being and appear to be in favour of positive lifestyle changes and proper financial preparation for the twilight years. Since these persons represent those who ‘have been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and sent the postcard’ it may just be smart thinking to heed their words of experience since, as ageing specialist Dr Denise Eldemire Shearer is constantly saying, “it is never too early or too late to begin to positively change your life”.