Responses to the Aging Special Issue: I’m Not Old; I Was Just Born a Long Time (letter to the editor)

Dear Editor,

Your March Special Issue on the Art, Creativity, and Psychology of Aging led me to reflect on aging. In a strong sense, age is a state of mind. There are, moreover, some important components of that state of mind. With advancing age most of us exhibit a greater degree of candor. Age also carries with it both a realization that what is history to others has been life experience for us, and an increasing realization that every day counts. Finally, we begin to recognize a certain futility attached to physical possessions, and we think, occasionally, about how we want to be remembered.

When I was young I spent much time with my maternal grandparents and today I am frequently aware of the profound impact they had on me. On my grandmother’s eighty-second birthday we had a big dinner for her and there was a cake with the numbers eighty-two on top. She sat and looked at that for a minute, then said, “How did I get so old?” I was twenty-nine at the time and was amused. Now, at eighty-four, I understand how she felt. I remember also being intrigued by the fact that, when the afternoon newspaper arrived, that same grandmother would turn quite promptly to the obituaries. Today, I find myself drawn to the obits in my professional and alumni journals. The ultimate consequence of increasingly reading that old acquaintances are dying and hearing about the deaths of notables whose age is very close to mine is an ever more acute awareness of my own mortality.

With that awareness comes the impulse to use what time is left productively. The human mind and body, like complex machines, have to be used to maintain their effectiveness; if they are allowed to stay idle too much of the time they become sluggish in their operation. I pride myself on having been active and productive throughout my adult life; I cannot picture myself otherwise. I see others my age whose mental or physical condition has appreciably deteriorated and fervently hope that this will never be my fate. I recall that when my mother was in her late eighties the family decided that her driving was no longer safe and convinced her to give up her car; I dread the prospect that I may someday be in her position.

There is also a need for “down time.” Thus, paradoxically, although I recognize the need for it, relaxation comes tinged with a nagging awareness of the many things still to be accomplished. I have slowed down some in recent years, but, paradoxically, I also have the urge to put things down on paper. There is a sense that all the wisdom and experience I have acquired over the years will be buried with me if I don’t pass it on.

Something one inevitably does after a certain age is to look back over a long series of world-altering events and marvel at the feeling of having experienced, personally, much of what is commonly viewed as history. My generation, for example frequently talked about “the war” and everyone knew that the reference was to WW II. Thus, it was somewhat of an awakening when I used that phrase in class and one of my students said, “What war?”

At Antioch College, where I spent my freshmen year, a quotation from Horace Mann, the college’s first president, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity,” has been adopted as a sort of motto. In the context of that quotation, I am not ashamed to die. However,

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to the extent that there are victories for which I can take any credit, that credit has to be shared with many others. Furthermore, the battles are never finally won; the gains must be defended constantly and repeatedly.

In conclusion, I offer one final thought. Stay active in both mind and body and you will hardly notice the days and years passing by.

Sincerely, yours,

F. Lincoln Grahlfs

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