Honoring Our Elders (or not)

 I turned 80 in June. By some amazing coincidence, all four of us who live in a string of townhouses in our Prairie Hill cohousing community also turned 80 this year! Of the 50+ residents here, we are the only ones who were born in 1945. So we invited our whole community to celebrate our birthday year at a beautiful pond and cabin out in the country. It felt good, getting to that milestone together.

However, I've discovered that it is not always fun being an "old woman". I never thought of myself as elderly until this last birthday. But culturally, I've stepped into a whole new category. My first negative old woman experience was with a young doctor. I had some confusing symptoms and called the 'nurse on-call' who instructed me to go to the emergency room immediately. She must have thought I was having a stroke. She even insisted that I go by ambulance, so I took my first ambulance ride, a bit of an adventure in itself. While in the ambulance, they did all kinds of tests and then helped me into a hospital treatment room. There, a young good-looking doctor came in and immediately said, "Ms Fawcett, there is nothing wrong with you. You need to go home and get used to this. It's just how you feel when you're old." I was dismissed. But before I could leave, a nurse came in and said that I had a bad UTI. Hmmm. The doc didn't apologize, but he did prescribe a couple antibiotics and then sent me home. This was my first experience with a UTI (urinary tract infection). Since then, I've learned how to recognize the symptoms and twice more have gone to a doctor (both young and male) and had them dismiss me without any treatment. The definite feeling I got was that old ladies were a waste of their time. Thank goodness I was able to get an appointment with a nurse practitioner in the Gynecology/Urology Department, and she was understanding and full of information about how this is something especially found in older women, and gave me a prescription that has so far kept me from getting any more infections. A happy ending, but a frustrating beginning!

These difficult experiences with young doctors made me realize that they have a tendency to see old women in a different category from the rest of us. I've always admired and trusted doctors, but that has changed. I'm in an age group that tends to be dismissed, not only in medicine but in other spheres as well in our present culture. Actually, I don't really feel like an old person. I think this is pretty common for elders. Inside, they're the same as they've always been. In some ways, I feel more like a teenager, still learning about the world. I remember taking my 80+ year-old mother to social occasions, and she would whisper to me about how old some of the people looked! And yet she looked older than all of them. Age is only skin-deep. We're still the unique, vibrant person we've always been, at heart. Our bodies are just getting less capable than they used to be.

What I've been noticing lately is how our own culture treats old people. As opposed to some cultures, we do not honor elders for their wisdom and knowledge, their lifetime of experience. Instead, we relegate them to the sidelines. Once you have grey hair and a cane, you are outside the circle of importance. I was brought up in this culture too. So I find myself losing confidence, seeing myself as perhaps irrelevant, and it's only because of a number, 80. Old woman. I also realized that it was not just others, but my own self who was relegating us older people onto the sidelines and I decided I could do something about this. At least I could re-educate myself and reclaim some of my place in the context of the whole of humanity.  It didn't really make sense for us to disregard the contributions of older people. So I decided to look into how other cultures treat their aging citizens. And I also wondered about how intelligent animals treat the older ones in their tribes.

What I found out about human cultures is that in our western culture, we've grown to celebrate youth, beauty and novelty. Older people are way out of that frame. However, there are other cultures in the world who still respect and are grateful for the wisdom that elders have accumulated through their long span of experiences and accomplishments. Some Asian cultures like Japan, Korea and China have a deep rooted respect for their elders. Indigenous cultures also honor the older people in their tribes as the keepers of tradition and wisdom. In India, older people play a central role as head of household. And in many African cultures, elders are still respected and listened to, as they lead the way through complicated situations. It was good to read about these respectful attitudes toward older people which are alive in some places still.

And then I started reading about animals! We've all heard about elephant matriarchs leading a large group of elephants to water or food. The group leans on these older female elephants, who have lived long enough to know what to do and where to go when drought hits. It is their long experience that helps the group survive. They provide the social glue and herd cohesion that is needed.

Dolphins have a similar story. It is the older members who teach the younger dolphins about hunting techniques. Their leadership is not based on dominance, but on relational skills. Killer whale groups are much the same. The oldest members have the most influence and guide the pod as they hunt. Even wolfpacks reserve a special place for the oldest wolves, who help guide the pack with their experience and leadership. OK, I thought, many animals still respect their elders. Yay!

And then I decided to look at plants. Trees, I found, share with their neighbors, communicate, and nurture community. The tallest and oldest of our trees, redwoods, can talk to each other through the fungal networks underground. Older trees send help to younger and more vulnerable trees. There is a huge story here, but it can wait until another time. Suffice it to say that what goes on underground is a fascinating and amazing chronicle of interconnection that helps the whole web of life in a forest or in other landscapes.

It's been good for me to look at the wide picture of old and young creatures. In our human culture, there is a tendency to dismiss older folks, but there are places and occasions when we DO honor our elders. It is refreshing to be in a room of wise people who are almost all old, and who are sharing their wisdom. It still does happen, and maybe if our elders are encouraged to speak out, they will be heard. That might actually make a big positive difference in the challenges we are facing now. For myself, I've decided that even though I'm 80, I'll not let it bother me. I'll just live my life without regard to that big number, and assume I still have something to contribute!