How Old is Old?

After shamelessly posting a photo of the certificate (but not the check!) I received for the award I received at the Tennessee Mountain Writers Conference last weekend, some who sent congratulatory messages expressed interest in reading my submission. So, with sincere apologies to my doctor, who really was nicer than I made him sound, here it is:

Theirs was what might now seem an unusual household, but at that time it wasn’t uncommon in our small town for extended family members of different generations to live together. The house belonged to Mr. Aubrey and his wife whom, following the southern custom, I always called “Miss” Inez. In addition to them, the other occupants of the house were her mother, whom everyone called Cousin Lizzie, and her brother, Horace. The men worked, Miss Inez kept house and took care of Cousin Lizzie.

In the afternoons Cousin Lizzie liked to sit on the front porch, holding court, as the first generation, therefore oldest, resident of the house. Although she talked little, she liked having visitors, so Mother and I would often walk across the street to sit with her. Miss Inez and Mother usually sat in the swing, while I sat in a rocking chair nearby.

I don’t remember all the afternoons we spent there, however, one afternoon from the summer of 1952 or 1953 has always stuck with me because of one thing Miss Inez said. Mother was enjoying her favorite afternoon treat, an ice cold Coca-Cola, while Miss Inez read an article from The Alabama Journal, the afternoon newspaper. I don’t remember what the article was about, only that when Miss Inez, reading aloud, came to “an elderly woman of 62” she stopped, lowered the paper, turned to my mother, and exclaimed, “elderly woman of 62? Well, I certainly didn’t know I was elderly!”

They all seemed old to me because I was nine or ten at the time. Although Mother was only around 37 or 38, like most preteens I thought my mother was old. Miss Inez didn’t give her exact age, but from the way she reacted to the article, she must have been 62 or older. Except for church or special occasions, Miss Inez wore cotton house dresses, covered by a bib apron. She had always seemed old to me, but not an old old, and certainly not elderly. Like a grandmother, she always had teacakes in the cookie jar and was exceedingly patient in teaching me to cook and to grow African violets. However, Cousin Lizzie always seemed elderly to me because she wore her long white hair coiled in a braid across her head in a manner only worn by women long past their youth. She was also confined to an old fashioned wooden wheelchair with a tall caned back, a visible confirmation that she was unmistakably elderly.

The memory of that afternoon came back to me recently. After a fall, I found myself hobbling in on a walker to be treated by a very young orthopedist. He was kind enough not to use the term elderly, but from his recommendations of modifications I needed to make, he obviously thought I was.  To be pronounced old by a doctor who had never seen me before was exasperating. Didn’t he understand that I was in enough pain already without that added blow? Even though it really was a fluke accident, he didn’t exactly say it was stupid of me, he obviously thought I had absolutely no business using a stepstool for any purpose and should have known better. How dare he imply that I was too old…well, too old for almost everything, and might need assistance? Didn’t they tell him before he finished med school that just because I might be the age of his grandmother that I certainly was nowhere near elderly.

Actually, since I’m more than a decade older that the woman described as elderly in the article Miss Inez read, I suppose I am, in fact elderly. But I don’t feel old, much less elderly. I’ve accepted the term Senior Citizen, perhaps because I was so fond of going to school that senior status sounded good. And then there is the matter of senior discounts: 20% off clothing on the first Tuesday of the month at Belk, a 5% discount on groceries at Publix on Wednesday, free coffee at some fast food places, and so on. I’ve often quipped that I claim my senior status when respect, convenience, or money is involved.

But elderly? How can it be that the words elder and elderly convey such different meanings to me? Elder Statesman or Elder of the church – both of these seem to endow wisdom upon and respect for the so-named person. Yet elderly seems to mean that the person is frail, perhaps beginning to “lose it” and is old, not in a good way.

So what words would I accept to describe this stage of my life when none seem to fit? Perhaps the problem is that there has been a change in what is expected of us as we age. Neither Miss Inez nor any of the women of her day were expected to look good in a bathing suit, go to the gym, or engage in any activity such as running, playing tennis or golf, or anything that might make them break a sweat. She definitely was not supposed to wear the same fashions that younger women chose. Although it never occurred to me then to give a thought to what went on in their bedrooms, in retrospect, I realize that women of their age at that time weren’t expected appear or act sexy. The expectation was that they would age, gracefully, of course, and allow wrinkles to develop without delusions that a cream would restore their skin to the dewy texture of when they were twenty. They wore lace dresses for special occasions, and had the beautician rinse their white hair in yellow-combating solutions, which if not applied carefully, tinted their hair lavender or blue. They smelled sweetly of soap, dusting powder, and rose water.

More than labeling words stands in my way. When I think of my role models, my grandmothers, my mother, and women like Miss Inez, their then age-appropriate lives and fashions no longer fit for my generation. However, no one told us how to make the leap from their grandmotherly settling into their seventies, eighties, and nineties to what society seems to demand now. So I’m caught unprepared.

My life is little like that of Miss Inez, and for the most part that is a good thing. But once in a while, I’d like to be like that sweet, self-assured woman relaxing from her daily chores, enjoying the company of four generations sitting on the front porch. We definitely had one thing in common, even though my realization came many decades later. We both found it incredulous that at sixty-two we were considered elderly.

There are many reasons I wish she were still here. If I could visit with her again on the front porch, I’d like to ask her more about getting old, and for her teacake recipe.