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.
