Hard to believe we've come to The Velveteen Grammie, an article Mom wrote for the Theta Alpha Journal. If it seems repetitive, it is. Her article pulled together her past few postings, with some extras thrown in. ~ elm 07/16/14
THE VELVETEEN GRAMMIE
Margery Williams' classic story, The Velveteen Rabbit+, includes an exchange between
two nursery toys, the Skin Horse and the Rabbit, who has asked the horse, "What is
REAL?" The Rabbit wants
to know if it happens all at once, like being wound up, or bit by bit.
"It doesn't happen all at once," said
the Skin Horse. "You become.
It takes a long time. That's why
it doesn't happen often to people who
break easily, or have sharp edges,
or who have to be carefully kept.
Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your fur has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and
you get loose in the joints and very
shabby. But those things don't matter at
all, because once you are Real you can't
be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
I relate to that passage. I turned
90 in May. As the years tick by and my fixtures and fittings become unglued and
the "fur" is loved off, a
stronger sense of being Real has moved forward.
It’s said that timing is everything.
The issue of aging is no
different. From the mid-1960s to recently, the culture in the USA
did not give much value to older people. The times today are a'changing as the generation of revolutionaries who declared "Don't trust anyone over 30!" now find themselves eligible for
AARP* membership. I have found that the
voice of wisdom is increasingly sought out by a generation that has no
intention of becoming invisible or going softly into that goodnight.
When I was a young whippersnapper of 50 and 60, I did not think much
about what life would be like if I lived
to be a ripe old age. If I had, it would have fallen short of the mark, nowhere near
what my experience has been, especially
as I tripped the "old"ometer into my nineties.
A favorite saying of mine for many moons is "Old
age ain't for sissies." Actually, managing to get to 90 relatively
sound of heart, mind and body (or any
one or more of those three) indicates some grit. As I inch closer toward triple digits, being old has gotten a lot
easier. Somewhere around my late 80s, I began to see the humor and humanity
more in things, to take upsets less
personally and put them more easily into perspective.
Looking back, the toughest years were when my energies were beginning to
flag and my body started slowing
down. The proprium - sense of self
- feels
threatened as it becomes clear
that an individual is far more than just the
sum of physical parts. To get to the light, we have to work through
the darkness. Moving out of that hanging-on state to one of
accepting that the body is a temporary
shelter designed to house our eternal soul could be compared to moving out of darkness and
confusion toward lightness and the
light. Ideally, the concepts of
physical being, of time and relationships,
are liberated as we get older and older.
My own awareness shifted when I suffered a small stroke late last
September.
That small stroke speeded up the process.
My mind feels strong, my spirit
feels strong. As my body
continues to head south, it no longer has the
energy to kick up a fuss about
being temporary or to even try to fake being
permanent. My feet drag somewhat
and I move a lot more slowly than I did,
but most days my spirit soars,
making itself felt more and more.
Just as little children look at their parents as really old,
not-so-young people can see their own
parents as shutting down as we age, gong into some sort of benign hibernation It is true that nature brings us, willingly
or not, into more meditative states and
slower tempos. Am I bored to tears sitting in the big chair in the living room
or in my soothing rocking chair? No, it
is surprisingly rewarding. The problem
is that young kids – looking through the
eyes of a still preening self - feel sad and think, "How dull her life must be." Too many Ancient and near-Ancient Ones fall
for that line. Truth be told, growth
keeps right on going, ideally right out of the ceilings of our cramped opinion. This old biddy
believes that the Lord intends us to live fully - whatever our physical or
mental condition - right up to the
moment we traipse across the threshold of our spiritual home.
For whatever reason, growing feeble, infirm and even forgetful is part of
the Lord's grand scheme. As I
edge closer toward triple digits, it is easier to let go of timebound prejudices and
expectations. Many women of my
generation anchored our identities on others,.
those we took care of and nourished.
Personally, I balked at sparing time or energy to think and act for
myself. Luckily, I had taken some
proactive strides toward becoming more aware well before the stroke.
Today. my body constantly clues me in that it is merely temporary. It is
breaking down. That is in the
order of things, however rotten it is to
experience. I take two strong
pain pills a day and I have excellent and open
doctors. I live in a supportive
household with two "youngsters" who love me. My daughter badgered and brow beat me to
think for myself rather than constantly
trying to mirror back what I thought she or others wanted me to say or do.
She was the burr under my saddle for change, but the catalyst was my son-in-law, who is remarkably gifted in
the ways of healthy communication.
My online "family" brings unexpected and incalculable
blessings, fulfilling in this life the
promise that "with thought brings presence," all at the
click of a mouse.
It is not all "beer and skittles" - there are rough patches.
The changes that come with old age are scary, especially changes
in life roles. I have not enjoyed the hands-on role of wife for
over 26 years. At ninety, I cannot even manage the role I played as a parent. The resources just are not there. I cannot provide massive emotional or even
minor financial support. I cannot wash a floor or do the grocery
shopping or even dust my own room. (I
can still shell hard boiled eggs and clean mushrooms!) Changing roles and changing identities can be rough, especially
on children, no matter how old they
are. Imagine the upset at finding that
good old Mom is not what she used to
be. That discovery could make even an
adult feel like a kid lost at the department store.
Whoever is ME is changing so fast it is hard to keep up at times. It feels
like more is bubbling up to the surface than ever before - well, since I
fell in love, married and became a mom
for the first time. As I write this in
July, we are even thinking about putting together my very own web site,
which seems ... well, I do not know what
it seems, but it does. Talk about
"the times today are a'changing"
~ I would not have dreamt that I would set foot anywhere near a meeting of people considering
the role of women within the General
Church, but there I was on July 8, feeling right at home, sitting front and center, and enjoying it immensely.
Of course, there is the fear of dependency. In January, I was diagnosed with acute degenerative arthritis of the
right shoulder. Nothing can be done to alleviate the condition. It will get progressively worse and worse. Luckily, aside from the pain, the only effect
at the moment is that I cannot get out
of bed without a helping hand. Still,
instead of being a custodial parent, I
am the one needing care. That took me
down a peg at first, but dependency has
turned out to have unique blessings. A
passage from the book Still Here ++ expresses my experience over the past year - "When there is true surrender and service between people,
the roles of helper and helped, and the
boundaries between those in power and those who are powerless, begin to dissolve." That has been my experience with my daughter
and son-in-law and with, it seems, most of the other people in my life - the
old limiting boundaries have begun to
dissolve.
Lots of things I loved to do are just memories. Instead of gearing up into depression over what is no longer, I find it
simpler to shift perspective. Picture
going to a favorite restaurant and ordering a favorite dish, only to told it is no longer on the menu. There are two choices - get in a funk over what is not availabIe or grab the
opportunity to check over the menu for something new. My personal menu of possibilities seems like
one of the oversized diner menus. There are many things that my physical
condition keep me from doing, but there
are a lot of new experiences just waiting to be
given a whirl. On the physical
level, life stinks. On almost every
other level - emotional, mental,
spiritual - the world is my oyster and
every month has an R!
A friend urged me to write about old age and make all the younger
folks envious of us Ancients. Growing old, even some of the sadder aspects
of it, is part of the Lord's grand
scheme. Let go of timebound prejudices
and fears of growing older. Marianne Williamson says that to get to the
light, a person has to work through the
darkness. In middle and early old age,
life can seem dark and scary as we move
out of the familiar into the unknown.
Work through it toward the light.
A key lesson learned over the past few years is that even unhappy events
can bring unexpected opportunites. Going back to Margery Williams book, if the
Boy had not gotten sick, if the beloved but germ-infested Rabbit was not doomed
to be burned, if he had not been able to wriggle a bit to get out the
sack, if great sadness had not caused a
real tear to trickle down his shabby velvet nose, the Rabbit would not have come at that time into the fullness
of being REAL.
You could say my eyes come close to dropping off (cataract surgery
is scheduled this fall) and my physical
appearance is certainly getting
shabbier. Take heart! This Velveteen Grammie holds the happy hope
of one day being reunited with her O!
Best Beloved and - together - seeing the REAL light.
+ The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery
Williams 1922
++ Still Here, Ram Dass 2000
* American Association of Retired Persons
(open to people over 50 years old)
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