May 2023 issue

26
WHAT HAVE I LEARNED AS AN ELDER?
by Susan Jackson
Writers’ Club
I have learned that the relationship with your children
changes. There is a final letting go of the feeling that you
must direct or advise them on how they live their life.
When you are in your sixties, you are still working,
balancing all the balls in your life, and helping children,
grown up as they are, to ease into their lives as workers
and often as parents trying to find their way through some
of the minefields of life. When you retire, and have more
time, you may find yourself fully in charge of daycare for
their offspring. Why not? You are healthy and available.
But as time passes, their lives become more formed, and
suddenly, they somehow become your middle-aged
children, fully in charge of their own lives.
The roles have switched while you weren’t watching.
You are no longer a caregiver, which has been a main
role in your life. They are the caregivers now, of their
own families, and you are freed of that weight on your
shoulders. You may still listen to their issues, but they are
not yours to solve. They know how to find their own
solutions.
There aren’t as many occasions where you actually get
together with them. They are very busy with their own
lives, and phone calls are often the only contact.
This pattern has become more reinforced by the last two
years of living with the COVID epidemic. Elders, and
those with underlying health issues, were most at risk of
serious complications from the virus. Their best
protection was to live in isolation. That meant that phone
calls became the norm. Family and friends were unable to
congregate. The best thing they could do to protect their
older friends and family was to simply stay away from
them.
At the same time, we have lost friends to death in the
natural course of events. I knew from textbooks that
elders are more likely to bear loneliness, but it is a
different thing to experience it. Friends from childhood
have died, friends from middle age have died, your
parents and the elders of your extended family have left
this Earth, and often, your partner has died. Your circle
grows ever smaller.
There is a continual need to make new friends to have
someone share the dilemmas of diminished health, and
some of the roadblocks in the ability for independent
living.
I have learned that you must reach out for other things
that give meaning to your life. If you have hobbies, you
have more time to invest in their enjoyment. Sometimes
your pastimes have to be adjusted. For instance, I had a
good friend who loved to go for long morning walks.
Then he had health issues and long walks were no longer
feasible. He took up fishing again.
The Sentinel - May 2023 — Vol. 47, No. 9
If it is company that you crave, you join groups of likeminded
people. This could require some effort, and
expense. Sometimes it involves spending money on
programs, and the limitations of your pension have to be
considered. Where do we find these groups?
People used to belong to religious groups where there
were always social activities going on. This is no longer
true in the majority of our lives. StatsCan census of 2019
says 53% of Canadians have no participation in a
religious group. When they break it down by ages, people
aged 64 to 83, the elders of our society, are churchgoers
in 85% of that age group. When we look at our younger
population, with ages from 24 to 43, churchgoers are
down to 32% of the population.
That information bears out in my three children. I
believe they could count on their right hand the number
of times they visited a church. I doubt my grandchildren
have ever been in a church. They might ask, “what is
religion”? History books may soon have to explain it to
them.
Loneliness and isolation are key issues for elders, and
presumably they will increase as religious affiliations
decrease across the land. Connection is an antidote. So
where do we look for community? We are lucky to have a
seniors centre in Guelph. Hats off to the core group that
worked on its inception. I would like to know who led the
way.
Honestly, I feel like this is a blurb for 10 good reasons
to join the seniors centre, but in my view, it is the best we
have going for us at the moment. There are such a variety
of programs. I see people coming out of a morning
workout in the gym, still limber and fit, while at the other
end of the hall, I see a group of quieter, white-haired
ladies bent over their quilting project, and enjoying their
time together. People have lunch together, play cards
together, meet at the book club, go to the evening dances,
laugh and sing together. This is what staves off
loneliness.
My daughter lives three hours north of Guelph by car,
and she recently asked me to consider moving closer to
her. The first thing I did was to see if there was a
community centre in her nearby city. There was not.
What quality of life could I envisage, stuck in a new
environment with nowhere to meet new friends and join
in activities. I told her it looked bleak. I would have been
nearer to her, but not happier. I will stay in Guelph. We
have our own daily paths to lead, much as we love each
other, and are there for each other. This is what I learned.