An Early Memory of Aging

Dear Editor,

For your special issue on aging I would like to share my earliest memory regarding old age. It is a dialogue with my paternal grandmother when I was a very young child. She complained, “I am so very old” to which I replied, “You are so very old and I am so very new.” My memory of it was reinforced because she enjoyed retelling the story in subsequent years.

Grandmother was a very beautiful young woman. When I knew her, she was highly intelligent and sociable with abundant white hair: she was frail, spending much of the day in a long reclining chair. I also felt that she was kinder and more appreciative toward me than was my mother. While I was in graduate school, my Freudian psychoanalyst commented, “I have to remind myself that your grandmother was a very old woman because you describe her as so attractive.” At some level this troubled me, because old age and infirmity do not necessarily make the person ugly.

At my present age of seventy-seven, the infirmities of age are thus far quite tolerable. Uselessness is what I fear most, as depicted in a cartoon, in which a doctor, sitting at his desk, looking at the patient’s medical chart, tells the man, “It appears that you will definitely outlive your usefulness.” To add to human knowledge and combat the feeling of not contributing to society, I continue a routine of active scholarly

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research, publication, and conference participation.

Two of my published articles reflect my interest in longevity. One is on outstanding chess players (Journal of Genetic Psychology, 1969, volume 115, pp. 143-148), noting that death occurred at a relatively early age for most of the outstanding players whose only major career was in chess. A recent example of this phenomenon is Bobby Fischer, who died in 2008 at age sixty-four. The other publication is on presidents of the United States (Omega, 1984, volume 14, pp. 315-321). Here my research established that death occurred at an earlier age if the president had been politically opposed to his predecessor. The difference persists in spite of the subsequent contrary example of Reagan, who defeated Carter and died at the unusually old age of ninety-three.

A close friend said to me several years ago, “Herb, unlike most men, you do not want power. You want freedom.” She was right, my desire is for freedom from the power of other people, not from the effects of old age. Some people prefer death to old age. Another close friend repeatedly said, “Herb, I don’t want to grow old and die.” More than twenty-five years ago, she died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage at age forty-six. She thereby avoided one of the two events she feared, but could not avoid the other, since all of us must die.

Several years ago, I was told about a comment by an elderly woman, “These are not the golden years, they are the rusting years.” It was a valid complaint, but there are also compensations for the difficulties of old age. As an older person I can feel proud of surviving for many years. I also identify and feel affiliated with an increasing number of younger people who will survive my death.

Sincerely yours,

Herbert Barry

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