My response was "Well I think I did sign on , and it is enevitable, unless I die sooner". And there lies the whole dilemna of ageing. How we view it, how we traverse it, and what psychological and spiritual work we need to do for this stage of life to be fullfilling for each of us.
My generation of baby boomers is currently careing for ageing parents and faceing up to these issues.
We have such a wonderful opportunity for new ways to view this world.
I was recently talking with a friend about the care of her ageing mother, which she is doing in her home with occassional help from other family members. The thing she said that effected her most was the overwhelming nature of the care needed for a person in the end stages of life. The vulnerability of the person is not just something that needs care but reflects deeply on the relationship between this woman and her mother and the life they have spent together. Accepting this passage of life as inevitiable, can be firstly an intellectual and emotional stumbling block, because it want it to be otherwise.
The mind somehow doesn't want to see, or ruin, our memories of a once vibrant mother, with all her faculties in place, cooking for family gatherings, loving us and our partners, welcoming the new members of family. Somehow above the petty squabbles, and vieing for top dog in the family hierachy. She just kept loving and accepting.
And here we are faced with a woman who can no longer do these things and needs our care. To bath, to dress, to have food on the plate and get to appointments in that big wide world.
To have this be a time of wonder and joy, as well as coming the deep emtional understanding of our own ageing process and finally death, has taken many of us to new places of understanding and a kind of liberation of who we think we are. Yes we are left with orphan status when when our parents pass on. But it is much more than that.
The opportunity for a forgiveing and almost innocent relationship is on offer. As the older person relinquishes the world, and has less and less interest in the things that held a focus in the past, a new more inward looking, sometimes subtle, change occurs.
It is at this time, from my experience and talking with others that the care can change from the physical to a more bringing forth of the joy and innocense of a remembering, and this may look childlike.
But it is I think the natural rememberance of where we came from in the first place. And a longing can set in for the passing on to occur.
This looks to us like acceptance.
Or it can look a little like a sort of dementia, where the person has one foot in this world and one in another.
The readiness for this major event, is natural.
However it can be aided by our acceptance, standing back, loving, helping and just being present.
While we miss and grieve for those who are passing or have passed. This is not about us. It isn't about hanging on, to the physical, trying to get the staus quo to remain or blanking out what we don't want to happen. This is only fear of our own reluctance to face our own mortality, and can with be looked at square on and released without much todo.
Recently I spoke about the joy of meditiating with friends not just with aquantances, and this I mentioned is particularily important with the elderly and those readying themselves to pass on.
Lastly I want to mention the role of forgiveness. Which is something that often starts to happen naturally for some older people, and can be encouraged in story telling and journaling, about their life. All lives have the wonder of history and therefore interest of ongoing generations.
But here I want to mention the forgiveness work necessary for the carer to feel free of burden, worry and anxiety about the future, and their part in the demise of the elderly. The outcome would be the acceptance of death and passing on as an occurance of inevitablity. The love with which we do this is up to us and takes using the processes of forgiveness on a daily basis. We are not seperate entities but totally connected to each other on a plane of knowledge, that because the elderly, having done their worldly duties, is now opening up to and being revealed in unique ways not to be missed.
It takes seeing the elderly as whole and innocent, seeing beyond the body, with the eyes of spiritual wonder to the empowering knowledge that a life well lived, whatever it has looked like is what it is. And is to be loved.
All the best
Reverend Margo Knox
ph 0409476803 margo@gracefultransitions.com.au
http://www.gracefultransitions.com.au
