At 85, looking back and moving forward
B.G. Kelley is a Philadelphia writer Frank Childs has a go-get-life attitude. An 85-year-old with a pacemaker, Childs goes to the Roxborough YMCA seven days a week. He rides a stationary bicycle. He lifts some weights. He takes a sauna. And, oh, yeah, he still has an eye for the ladies.
B.G. Kelley
is a Philadelphia writer
Frank Childs has a go-get-life attitude. An 85-year-old with a pacemaker, Childs goes to the Roxborough YMCA seven days a week. He rides a stationary bicycle. He lifts some weights. He takes a sauna. And, oh, yeah, he still has an eye for the ladies.
Frank Childs refuses to be a lonely star in the sky. He simply chortles with life; it warms you to be around him.
Childs has the answer to aging: Resist, don't retreat. Instead of hunkering down and waiting for the endgame, he taps into his youthful side to make better the time he has left.
We all might take a cue from him.
Not only does Childs keep his body active but also his mind. He likes to look back and bring up memories that made - still make - him happy: working in a factory, where he made lifelong friends; his family, especially his son; sports - a rabid Notre Dame football fan all his life, he loves to reminisce about Irish gridiron greatness.
Maybe, just maybe, Childs is onto something sanguine in aging successfully.
A study published in the journal Psychological Science concluded that looking back results in a stable and joyous emotional state. And psychologist Krystine Batcho says: "Nostalgia helps people feel connected. It helps people maintain their sense of identity."
Rumination certainly makes perfect sense.
Surely there is something healthy, wealthy, and wise in staying in touch with our past as we age. If memories are ignored or neglected, there is no sense of, indeed, no access to, our historical context - indeed, there will not be a full and adequate understanding of the life we have lived.
So yes, looking back leavens life as we age. It expands and intensifies the relevance of our life. If we simply and solely rage at the darkness of aging, it is destined to overshadow the sunlight of the past. Indeed, it will alter the humanity in our souls.
I am thinking of my sister.
In the spring of 1990 she called from her home in Beverly Hills. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was only 45. I became numb on the phone, my throat turning to gravel, and was hardly able to process what was said after that.
As spring segued into summer, the cancer spread to other vital organs.
My sister made a decision: She chose to live the last days of her life on her terms. She would die at home, not in a hospital or nursing home. It was a sign that she was at peace. She would not, as Dylan Thomas exhorted, "Burn and rave at close of day."
She spent what time she had left telling and retelling stories of her happy and joyous past with family and friends. In her final days she retained the best qualities of the young: empathy, forgiveness, truthfulness, generosity, and innocence. She embodied that saying about children: "Bearing newer blossoms around an older blossom."
When she went gentle into that good night, it wasn't a quitter's peace but a time of acceptance.
Those of you who have read me on this page know that I often look back. In fact, I blast into my past. It ripens me. It gives me joy, indeed passion. It inspires me. It measures who I am.
Looking back fuels my body, mind, and spirit, and helps me cope with that long, sometimes terror-fraught, night called old age. Looking back helps me capture the stars all around me: the kids I teach in my writing class; the parks in which I walk; the longtime friends I have lunch or dinner with; the priest who has been part of my family for decades; and, most of all, my wife of 45 years.
When we open ourselves to our past, like Frank Childs, there is this understanding: We can never be reduced to a lonely star.