Old People

Dear Jessica Brennan,

Recently we visited grandma and grandpa in their long term care facility.  It is very nice there. It was built only a few years ago and has a coffee shop, library, WiFi, several dining rooms, lounges and balconies.  

The only drawback is that if you put large numbers of people together anywhere, viruses abound.  At grandma and grandpa’s place, when you get to the double doors that go from the public spaces to the private areas, there are often signs everywhere that give you warnings.  

“People in this home have the flu!”

“You will get sick!”

“Turn back now!”

“This is your final warning!”

“Run for your life! (Seriously, run).”

We of course largely ignore these and just march right into the peril of senior-world sanitizing our hands regularly along the way.  

Unfortunately the last two times I’ve gone, I’ve been off work sick for 3 days following the visit.  This most recent time in particular I spent 12 hours thinking I was going to die, 12 hours wishing I would die and a week trying to get my strength back.  

This tells me that old people have the constitution of athletes. So here are 6 reasons I think old people should be the poster children for resilience.

First, they are at an age where they have all had something difficult happen to them, and they survived it. Ask any old person and they will tell you a harrowing tale of loss, grief and death-defying acts.

Second, they all walked to school, usually uphill both ways, they all slept in bedrooms where the frost stood out on the walls, and they all ate what was put in front of them because they were just glad to have food in their house.  Again, ask them, they will tell you.

Third, they let their kids play outside until after dark, drank martinis and smoked while they were pregnant, and drove a station wagon with no seat belts around for days on family vacations looking for a motel room that was under $6 a night (including breakfast). No one took their kids away for it, either.

Fourth, they survived an era where there was no dishwasher, no reality TV, no computers and no Starbucks. They also didn’t buy bottled water, they just ran the tap, and they mended their trousers if they were ripped, they didn’t buy them that way.

Fifth, when they went to work they didn’t spend more time talking about health and safety and risk, and writing policies and procedures, than they did actually doing their jobs, and people didn’t sue each other, just to see if they could get something, because in those days that kind of behaviour was considered dishonest, and beneath human dignity.

Sixth, they existed without Deepak and Oprah, and all manner of other self-help gurus, and just got on with it.  They didn’t do Pilates or read The Secret or attempt to manifest or purge, they just went to work and came home, ate at the kitchen table with their family, and later watched the Jackie Gleason Show and the hockey game.

Old people have survived huge hardships, lived without conveniences we take for granted, had to look out for themselves in ways we have never had to and they did it all without the assistance of pop psychologists.

Next time we go to see grandma and grandpa, we will meet them in the public lounge away from the warning signs and hopefully we will survive it, because I’m living proof, that the one thing old people didn’t do apparently, was pass their resilience on to the next generation.

Love,

Mum xo