Age is just a number

I've always had my personal feelings on aging and getting older. At first I never thought I'd be 16 and able to drive. Then it was becoming 18 having "freedom." Then there was the time I never thought I'd live to see 21. And with each passing day and year, I realize my thoughts on aging were wrong. It's easy to judge age as a number when we are young because so much of what we can and can't do is based on a number. But now that I've become older and can look at my past and the future, I realize there is a lot more to aging than just a number.
Through watching my grandparents age I was able to learn a lot about them, life, and even myself. Since my parents are both only children, my siblings and I were spent a lot of time just ourselves with our grandparents. As I look back, I can realize how much I learned from each of them and how different their lives were growing up and how it shaped who they are. As I walk around Rose Manor I see these faces that vaguely remind me of the last years of my memory of my grandparents. I learned that my g'parents were a lot more than the wrinkles and gray hair on their heads. The walkers and wheelchairs didn't change what lives the lived being in the Navy or the Mayor or an English teacher for 40 years. I'm learning to look past these same wrinkles on the faces I see twice and week. I can't define these folks by their age, but by what the've accomplished. These folks have lived through a lot and can share their stories if only we listen. As an OTA, I'm with someone for 45 min. and in that time I've got goals to which I'm working towards. But in the cracks of a session I can really find out whom these people are and were.
One thing I do know is how much an environment can shape how someone is. On one hand, I had a grandmother who was frivolous with money and always seemed to have nice, new things. Growing up she was a beautiful lady who loved going to parties and dancing. Her husband was a Navy man who also became Mayor of a tiny town in Florida. She had a previous marriage to a genius  alcoholic in which my father was born. They were too busy with their parties and wild events that they let someone else raise him. Towards the very end, she always loved money, jewels, and hated dirt. I always remember having to tip-toe around her house to avoid even putting footprints on her white carpet. Then, their was the opposite. My mothers mother who managed to raise a girl, while being a teacher, all on her own. She sewed my mothers close and saved every dime she made. She used to wash tinfoil and plastic bags in her dishwasher (if she wasn't hand washing everything). Even to this day I get made fun of for still washing plastic ziploc bags in the dishwasher. This lady was raised on a farm during the depression and learned the value of money and 'stuff.' Her husband, a Navy man, passed while she was in the hospital giving birth to my mother. I still make sure to turn off every light behind me because I can see her shaking her finger at me if I leave it on.
When these two remarkable ladies passed, I learned a valuable lesson about the lives we lead. My dads mother passed away quietly without much noise. She had no friends come to the funeral, or letters and flowers being sent. She lived a sheltered life and never gave back to her community. Everything she did revolved around her. Her upbringing in Mass. was sheltered and not without. She always had food and 'things.' When my mothers mother passed, we received letter after letter. Friends who could make it showed up for the funeral. Letters from students from her 39 years of teaching filled our mailbox day after day. Every person saying how they loved her and how much she helped them. She was stricken in her final years with dementia and it was hard seeing this strong, independent lady become helpless. Even as she faded away, that person who saved all and gave all was there. She constantly was trying to clean the nursing home she was at and pick up the trash from inside and the weeds from outside.

With these two women as examples, I think environment plays a huge role in who we become and how we age. My grandmother with her life all about her faded fast once the disease got ahold of her. She didn't have much to live for other than telling us what to do for her. While my mother's mother slowly walked away from this world. She was always surrounded by people that loved her and always had something to do and look forward to.


There are many reasons a person ages the way they do. Stress, health, environment etc., all play a role. And while we can change our environment to an extent, it will always help define who we are. I imagine I'll be saying "yes ma'am and no sir" until the end of days. With a new generation beginning to fill the nursing homes, it is important that we get to know these individuals. They have lived fascinating lives that we can learn a lot from. We cannot judge these folks as a general age but we need to look at each as an individual. These baby boomers have been changing the way America functioned since they were born. First, we ran out of school rooms, and now, we are running out of social security and nursing home rooms. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/02/aging-in-america-baby-boomers-arianna-huffington_n_1397686.html Each of these individuals will have a different past and different story to which they aged by. I look forward to working with this 'new' generation and the many things I will learn that will eventually help me age as well.