After closing in on a four-week hiatus, I’m grateful to be able to offer some reflections, returning this time to the topic of aging and one of the issues common to most of us as the years come and go. That said, what and how much is lost may differ widely among people in the same age range. For example, one of my friends in my men’s group is exactly my age, but when I speak of my “losses,” virtually none of them will apply to him!

To begin, I want to offer a brief quotation, shared by my friend with our men’s group, that I think can hover like a rainbow over all that follows:

Happiness is letting go of what you think your life is supposed to look like, and celebrating it for everything it is. (Mandy Hale)*

Although this blog is not intended to be a personal “gripe session,” I do think that if we are to address the question posed by the topic, it will be helpful to have some examples of “what is lost.”

I’ll begin with the experience that hangs like a cloud over most other losses I could name. It began one day in 2016 with the sudden onset of severe neck pain, which lasted for several hours. I learned later from my neurosurgeon that the cause, in layman’s terms, was that my spinal cord had become “spongy.”  The medical term is Myelomalacia, or Myelitis, of the cervical spinal cord. Since one of the effects is considerable numbness in the hips and legs, it causes muscle weakness and affects balance and mobility, which eventually made a cane my constant companion.

That said, a number of things I’ve lost sprung directly from the effects of this spinal cord issue. For example, my ability to play tennis or racquetball—which I had done as many as 4 or 5 times a week until I was 80—is no longer possible; walking regularly around Biltmore Lake for a mile or more, as well as walking our own curvy and hilly streets, are also things of the past. The cause/effect of other losses is not as direct, but there is a connection. For example:

My 45-year vocation in higher education was accompanied by two avocational careers.

• For most of that time (thanks primarily to my friend, Jim Thomas) I was fortunate to have leading roles in dozens of professional theatre productions. But being wedded to a cane severely limited the roles for which I could qualify. Even performing in readers’ theatre became more limited as my ability to sit and stand easily was more difficult. And now, “wedded” to a walker, the possibility of any roles at all have virtually vanished!
• Beginning in 1981, I regularly recorded voice-overs for radio, TV, videos, etc. at ProComm Studios, a local firm that served clients nationally. But as a body ages, so does a voice, and the scripts that call for “Grandpa,” or the resident of a retirement community, became less frequent, as did my mobility and the option of recording from home.

Finally, the last “loss” I’ll mention has been international travel. Since my first trip abroad in 1974, with 10 students in Switzerland, I was absolutely smitten with the joys of so many eye-opening, enriching experiences in  over twenty different countries, especially, I must say, in Australia and New Zealand! On our first four-week trip there in 2008, my wife and I were absolutely “mesmerized,” especially by the South Island of New Zealand! We have made three additional trips to AUS & NZ in 2012, 2015 & 2018, but, sadly, my inability to navigate airports or airplanes means I will likely be unable to travel internationally ever again—an indescribable loss for me!

After having spent way too much time and space on my own losses, I hope that they have triggered your consciousness of some of your own losses brought on by your advancing years. Perhaps to further stimulate your self-reflection, let me offer the following possibilities, some of which come from my own “wandering about” on the Internet, some from my own thinking, and others from the observations of some of my friends.

• Sensory loss, some, but not all, of which can be remedied by glasses, eye surgeries, and hearing aids.
• Loss of sexual enjoyment—for some this can begin as early as their sixties, while others may have expected to be sexually active into their eighties.
• Serious health problems—some that I have experienced are heart issues, injuries from falls, advancing arthritis, and some loss of mobility; others, such as strokes, fractures, or cancer I have so far, gratefully, not had to confront.
• Isolation, loneliness, and loss of independence are common but these I have also, at this point, escaped.

No doubt you can extend the list yourself. But whatever losses have, or will, affect you, what coping methods might be available? Again, you can find bountiful advice across the internet, but I will offer just three things that have been effective for me.

• One that has been important is lowering my expectations but embracing optimism as strongly as I can. There are many things I used to do and would love to be able to do again, but realism needs to rein. Nothing would thrill me more than using a tennis racquet or even a golf club, but those hopes and wishes simply ain’t gonna happen and I have to “put them to bed.” Even walking a mile in the park using only a cane is not likely to occur again. However, what if I’m able to figure out how to fold my walker in the car, drive to a safe, paved area, get my walker back out of the car, and walk a hundred yards or so? It isn’t what it used to be, but it’s better than sitting at home wallowing in self-pity!  So, I intend to try. Which leads me to:
• Engaging in problem solving. I just suggested one example, involving this walker, to which I seem to be “connected at the hip” for the time being. So, I’ve been trying to use the problem solving skills that I developed out of necessity during the years I was directly involved in teaching and learning. For me, it means addressing a problem by breaking it down into its constituent parts and moving those pieces around until you find a new pattern that allows you to “fix” the problem. Case in point: for many years we have “fed the birds” by filling four bird feeders from a can of bird seed in our garage, carrying them out to the side deck, and hanging them on fixtures attached to the railing. The problem: my walker is too large and cumbersome to allow carrying the feeders back and forth to the garage, so they now hang empty out on the deck. Problem-solving solution (which I have not yet tried): find a bucket large enough to carry sufficient bird seed and a container to pour the seed into the feeders, but small enough to carry while navigating my walker with one hand (which I already do). Simply put, take the seed to the feeders instead of the feeders to the seed. Today we’ll see if it works!
• As we age, there are losses that confront all of us with two choices: sadly accept the loss and wallow in self-pity, or pick it up—mentally, or even physically—and use our problem solving skills to find a way around it. I realize, of course, that some problems will not lend themselves to such an approach and that we simply have to accept them—but some of them might have “work-arounds,” and it’s worth our time and effort to distinguish among them.
• Finally, it’s important to maintain emotionally supportive relationships. The most obvious one for me is with my wife, who has been my primary support—both emotionally and physically. But I am aware and fully understand that the burden sometimes becomes too much for her to bear alone. Fortunately, I have three close friends, one who lives nearby and with whom I am able to spend time on a regular basis, one who now lives in Hershey, PA but with whom I am in touch on a regular basis, and another who lives near Nashville, TN. I have been close friends with each of these, respectively, for 48, 55, and 65 years and we have been supportively present for each other, sometimes along with our wives, on many occasions. In addition, I have established physically and emotionally supportive relationships with two of the physical therapists who have worked with me on a variety of physical issues over the past 15 years or so, as well as with my primary care physicians over the past three decades.

I have, once again, gone on too long! So, I hope that I have in some way stirred your consciousness of your losses, as well as your memory and creativity, enough for you to find your own ways of coping with what you have lost. That said, I will close these overly long observations with these highly relevant quotations from Farther Along, written by my late mother-in-law, which she described in her own words as “a book about coping . . . .”

“I believe that people who are glad they’re alive, sick or well or half-and-half, do “living” best. Our lives do not run on automatic. The breathing in, the breathing out, the working together of bodily functions—this is merely the process. The essence lies within the bedrock of human endurance, the refusal to be conquered by despair, even when it appears to have won” (p. 72).

“Growing old is far more than the slow diminishing of bodily powers or the upward count of years. . . . Aging accumulates wisdom and mercy which rise unnoticed from a thousand familiar graves and moves through the hills and valleys of our significance, still teaching us, still instructing, still cultivating hope. For hope is at the cornerstone of all that we are and all that we can be” (p. 123).

“I think of the incalculable worth of experience, the range of knowledge, the sadness and the joy of human thought, . . .the hearts which have been broken, the prayers that have been uttered, the depth of wisdom that has been gathered, the help given, hopes dashed, dreams realized, service rendered, the insights—and the laughter. Dear God in Heaven, let me not forget the laughter” (p. 119)

Anne Sutherland Adkins, Farther Along: Life with Multiple Sclerosis and Other Surprises. Stratford Books, Winston Salem, NC, 2005.

*Mandy Hale is a blogger who became a New York Times best-selling author and speaker, has written four books, and is the creator of The Single Woman social media movement.