I’m getting older. I’ve lost three friends to death in the last month. My body doesn’t work as well as it used to. My vision is worse, and I’m deaf in one ear.
President Herbert Hoover once noted that the only thing old people talk about is their “ills and pills.”
Listen to senior citizens’ conversations and you’ll find this to be true.
Old people are dealing with reality. Illness or incapacity are common as we age. Pain tends to focus our perspectives not on what we can do, but on what we can’t.
Author Stephen Covey noted in his last book before he died that we all need “to live, to love, and to leave a legacy.” These words of wisdom should be our goals at any age.
Have you considered what your life goals are? My greatest concern is that as I age, I will become irrelevant and a burden to others. I know my time is running out so I’m exercising seven days a week. I get adequate sleep. I’m very careful about what I eat. I continue to learn new things, and I’m increasing my circle of friends as the years race by.
Men often do the opposite. As they age, their world grows smaller and smaller. I’ve seen that in some of my older friends.
My grandfather died at age 70 because he developed type II diabetes. This was in the 1930s when insulin was being developed. He read about the discovery in the New York Times and ordered some before it was offered as a prescription. It extended his life.
I was only one when this grandfather died, but when I was 16, I thought about what happened to him. I decided I would give up refined sugars. I quit cold turkey.
I’ve never regretted that decision. I’m healthier today as a result. According to one study, every gram of refined sugar subtracts seven seconds of your life. How they came to those numbers is a mystery to me, but it makes sense. Think of the long-term effects of your decision to eat refined sugars.
My father died when he was fifty-nine and I was twenty-two. He became mentally ill. I didn’t know it until I was in my middle teens. His sickness affected everyone in the family, distorting each of our lives as we struggled to cope. He had been involved in combat on the U.S.S. Massachusetts during World War II in the Pacific. Being a very sensitive man, he couldn’t cope with the stress of people dying because of his orders. I inherited his sensitivity.
When I had children of my own, I decided to set a goal to “be the Dad I wish I had.” Now that I am a grandfather of eleven, I’ve adjusted my goal to: “be the granddad I wish I had.” That required me to rethink what an ideal grandfather would be like—how he should act and treat his grandchildren.
I decided I would spend time playing games with my grandchildren. Like Stephen Covey, I want “to live, to love, and to leave a legacy.” My legacy to them is to spend time with them, to share some thoughts about my life experiences and to let them get to know me as a flawed but loving human.
I was surprised to learn that one of my grandsons who is now seventeen didn’t know I taught for 31 years at Sumner High School, just a few blocks from his house. Unless we grandparents share our lives with our grandchildren, they grow up ignorant of their own heritage and the decisions that my generation have bequeathed upon them.
We all have a choice as we age. It’s likely that most of us will become a burden to our children at some point. Because we are likely to focus on our “ills and pills,” our lives become irrelevant to others—unless we make conscious decisions while we can to leave a positive generational legacy.
We will leave a legacy, whether we plan to or not. The nature of our legacy is our choice.
Richard Elfers is a columnist, a former Enumclaw City Council member and a Green River College professor.
