Well Aged: Making the Most of Your Platinum Years

By Ralph Milton

Finding happiness at 80+, from the perspective of an octogenarian.

Author Ralph Milton wants readers to know that old age is not a disease circling the world ready to pounce on anyone over eighty. Many, maybe even most, old people, say they are happier and more contented than they have ever been. And that’s good news because Canadians are living much, much longer. In fact, octogenarians are the county’s fastest growing demographic. To quote the author, "Society has never had to deal with such a huge bunch of old people."

To address this societal shift, Well Aged offers a candid, useful and entertaining insider’s take on life among the old, old. Not the recently retired who are enjoying Arizona winters and unlimited golf, but those in their last years, usually in the eighty- to one- hundred-year-old bracket. While there is good material written by health-care professionals for other professionals, and popular non-fiction to inspire the recently retired, there is virtually nothing written at the non-professional level for the oldest of the old. Or for their families and care givers. This book is a free wheeling, down to earth, inside look at what it’s really like to be old, written by an insider and sprinkled liberally with humour.

Topics include:

• Identity and independence
• Choosing a retirement location among the options of independent living, retirement residences and nursing homes
• Personal health needs and priorities
• Community support, friendships and recreation
• Spirituality and religion
• Intimacy, companionship, sexuality, homosexuality
• Loneliness, depression and frailty
• Leaving a legacy and end of life arrangements

When the situation of elderly Canadians does get public attention, as it has during the Covid-19 pandemic, the focus is on what can go wrong. Well Aged is intended to expand the conversation around aging, and it is a must-read for anyone who needs to put out their birthday cake with a fire extinguisher—as well as those who love and care for them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
• Release date: Oct 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781771623117

Ralph Milton

Ralph Milton was publisher of Wood Lake Books from 1980 to 2000. He has written hundreds of magazine articles and is the author of over twenty books. He holds two honorary doctorates (Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Sacred Letters). Milton lives in Kelowna, BC, with Beverley, his wife of 63 years.

Book preview

A silver plant with seven leaves on a stem over a green background. They extend from the bottom left of the image to the center right. The leaves are paired on each side of the stem, with a single leaf on the tip. Text: A down-to-earth look at finding happiness at 80+. Ralph Milton. Well Aged: Making the Most of Your Platinum Years.

Well Aged

Select books by Ralph Milton

The Gift of Story

The Spirituality of Grandparenting

Julian’s Cell

The Essence of Julian

Angels in Red Suspenders

Is This Your Idea of a Good Time, God?

God for Beginners

Well Aged

Making the Most of Your Platinum Years

Ralph Milton

Douglas & McIntyre

Copyright © 2021 Ralph Milton

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca, 1-800-893-5777, [e-mail].

Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.

P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC, V0N 2H0

www.douglas-mcintyre.com

Edited by Derek Fairbridge

Cover design by Anna Comfort O’Keeffe

Text design by Shed Simas / Onça Design

Printed and bound in Canada

Printed on 100% recycled, FSC-certified paper

Supported by the Government of Canada Supported by the Canada Council of the Arts Supported by the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council

Douglas and McIntyre acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Well aged : making the most of your platinum years / Ralph Milton.

Names: Milton, Ralph, author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210280417 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210280433 | ISBN 9781771623100 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781771623117 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Older people. | LCSH: Aging.

Classification: LCC HQ1061 .M54 2021 | DDC 305.26—dc23

Life is never lived alone. My life is intimately tied to the life of Bev, who agreed to share it with me more than sixty-four years ago. This has been especially true during these last years when, as retired seniors, we are together 24/7. The friendship and the love have grown in these years, even more so in the tiny two-room apartment we share at the Dorchester.

So to:

Beverley Joanne Ingledew Milton

I dedicate this book and my life.

Table of Contents

Author’s Note

The Zoom Gang Full disclosure Gratitude

Chapter 1: The Art of Growing Old

A book and a pandemic A social experiment The promise under the pile Changing the conversation Back to the beginning Official aging An achievement Shopworn forerunners When the golden goes grey Except for the golf Not a lot of frowns Get rid of the stereotype Part of the human race Bibs and blessings

Chapter 2: Aging and Sage-ing

Wrinkles tell the story Elvis lives here A sack of potatoes All shook up I was a big wheel Who are we now? Become a somebody Mom’s last days Precious old people They’re all alike Talking down Downsizing Scaled down and irrelevant There goes your macho The good news A laughing God Old age is not a disease

Chapter 3: Enjoying Age as Grandparents

Senior fringe benefits Who is George? The gift of grandparenting Fulfilled and blessed Holiness revealed In touch with reality A gold star A definition of genius Grandparents becoming parents Embracing technology Dinner with Grandma Sink or swim A big, fat generation gap Adopting a grandparent Grandparents Day The people in my life

Chapter 4: Food and Friendship

Healthy eating and healthy people Learning from the pandemic Food and community Living up to the standard A thankless job

Chapter 5: Home, Sweet Home

Acceptability Life on a cruise ship When everything’s perfect Lessons learned Choices Doing it right The good old days Things have changed Kinds of care facilities Independent living Getting the right facility A growth industry Grey power Real-life stories Opportunities missed A different approach Caring for caregivers Where is home? Look before you leap The right kind of people Points to ponder

Chapter 6: Staying Healthy

Pills, pills, pills You just put up with it Bladders and bowels A full night’s sleep Dementia or incontinence Management problems Recovering virginity Learning to laugh

Chapter 7: Loneliness

No such thing as ugly Negative vibes The high cost of loneliness Solitary monks Solitary confinement Finding happiness The power of presence The friendliest animal The terrible question Searching in the wrong place Suggestions Social animals Does it hurt?

Chapter 8: Sexuality

Friendships The humour of sex Enjoy the foibles The pain and the joy of it Geriatric romance Courtship skills We all need love Romance among old folks Looking for a partner Use your BS detector Sexual Olympics The saddest loss Openness

Chapter 9: The Long Life

Longevity To find meaning Finding a vocation An apple a day . . . Fear of death The fountain of youth Life in a coal mine Suggestions for a long life Hateful exercises

Chapter 10: Dementia

A sense of community Gratitude and anger Somebody is home What is dementia? The sword of Damocles What can be done Hey Siri! Dr. Spock for seniors Living the love Finding the patience What can we do? Lost in isolation Quality, not quantity

Chapter 11: Leaving a Legacy

Beautiful, terrible memories Becoming an orphan Selective memories The gift of identity A pearl of great price Spend every nickel Mom’s biography Your autobiography Publishing Why bother? An electronic library Genealogies Avoiding a hassle Funeral arrangements A thoughtful gift What gets left behind Watch out for scam artists Life after death

Chapter 12: The Gift of Life and Death

Serious, but not solemn Moments of love and laughter The ways of dying Final choices It hurts good Sad surprises A deep and holy wisdom Choices in facing death A good death A bit at a time We quietly slip away The most difficult choice Saying goodbye

Chapter 13: Spirituality and the Joy of Aging

The beauty of age Emotional housecleaning Dysfunctional families Finding community—and joy In the zone Gifts and miracles Personalities can be changed Heavenly courtroom Joy—the deepest experience Acceptance The people we lose Power of forgiveness Supportive community

About the Author

Author’s Note

This is not a self-help book. Nor is it a reasoned dissertation on the last years of our lives. It is not a comprehensive or scholarly work. There are no exhaustive or exhausting footnotes. Well Aged simply contains an old journalist’s thoughts on experiencing the last few decades of life—the best of it and the worst of it. My objective with this book is to offer a realistic description of life as an older senior.

The platinum leaves on the cover relate to the foundational metaphor for the book. The green leaves of summer are all about growth and energy. But all that chlorophyll drains down to the roots in autumn, and the leaves reveal their true and vibrant colours. The golden age of life. Then in the last years of our lives, the gold changes to the even more precious platinum.

My hope is that the pages that follow will give younger people an insight into what these platinum years are like for those of us who are over eighty. I hope they give us a bit of the feel, the taste, the beauty and the pain of it all—that we’ll come to think of old as a good thing to be. Platinum is even more precious than gold, but softer and more easily marred.

There’s no such a thing as truly objective reporting, but there is such a thing as fairness. I’m not a dispassionate observer reporting on this stage of life, carefully articulating every aspect of the experience. I am up to my eyeballs in it, both enjoying and hating it.

But I do try to be fair and kind in my descriptions.

As for the people I describe along the way, you’ll notice that in most cases I use only first names. The names are fictitious, but the people are real. I tell some beautiful and painful life stories—tearful and joyful accounts I’ve heard. But I’ve disguised them so that nobody can attach them to a specific person. And I’ve tried to use my skills as a storyteller to add bits of detail and colour and, sometimes, to combine several stories into one. But the stories are true in the sense that they are about real people and real experiences.

Where I’ve used full names, those refer to real people. I’m using their story or their information with their blessing.

The Zoom Gang

Many of these stories came to me through a dozen Zoom conferences with a group of twenty-five people who shared their insights week by week on all the many topics covered in this book. Most of them are seniors like me, but a few were invited because of their professional insights. While much of the basic research came from literature on aging, stories shared in the Zoom group added the colour, the texture, the tears and the laughter. To them I am profoundly grateful. I refer to them often as the Zoom gang.

Beryl Itani, senior, social activist, Kelowna, BC

Rev. Bob Thompson, senior, retired clergy, Oyama, BC

Rev. Bob Warrick, senior, retired clergy, Brisbane, Australia

Eleanor Fox, retired nurse, Kelowna, BC

Rev. Frances Kitson, clergy, Vancouver

Rev. Gordon How, senior, retired clergy, Vancouver

Irene Carter, marriage counsellor, Calgary

Jake McNair, journalist, Toronto

Jan Beran, senior, social activist, Ames, Iowa

Dr. John Birch, senior, retired surgeon, Kelowna, BC

Rev. Ken Westereng, senior, retired clergy, Kelowna, BC

Kari McNair, homemaker, Vernon, BC

Krista Crowder, sales consultant, Kelowna, BC

Dr. Kristine Theurer, freelance programmer, Vancouver

Dr. Marion Best, senior, social activist, Naramata, BC

Rev. Mark Malek, senior, retired clergy, Vernon, BC

Mary Robertson, senior, retired executive, Naramata, BC

Miriam Westereng, senior, retired teacher, Kelowna, BC

Nola Warrick, senior, retired social activist, Brisbane, Australia

Pat Totton, senior, retired nurse, Kelowna, BC

Ralph Carter, retired musician, Calgary

Robert Riddle, senior, retired social worker, Kelowna, BC

Sharilynn Upsdell, retirement residence chaplain, Kelowna, BC

Stacey Baker, recreation director, Kelowna, BC

Terry Welsh, senior, retired actor, Kelowna, BC

Tom Kemp, retired hospice counsellor, Kelowna, BC

Full disclosure

Much of the experience that gave rise to this book happened in the life my wife, Bev, and I are living at the Dorchester, a senior living facility in downtown Kelowna, owned by Revera Inc. The residents and staff have been marvellously cooperative and helpful with the completion of this book. However, at no time have they asked for nor been given any direct influence or control over any part of the book.

I’m a journalist. I’m not an expert on anything. So don’t take any part of this book as advice on things medical or financial. It’s not a book of advice at all.

I also feel that it’s important to note that I am an incurably religious person. I have been involved with the inclusive, liberal movement in the Christian church all my adult life. Bev is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada. Early in our life together, we lived and worked in the Philippines, and later, for a number of years, in New York, where I worked with the National Council of Churches.

My work has taken me to many different countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, where I worked ecumenically with a wide variety of churches and faith groups: Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and others. I have learned to respect and value the way in which God is active in all religious and faith traditions. I hope that shows through in the text.

Gratitude

There are many others who contributed to this work. My colleague and closest friend, Jim Taylor, struggled with me as I tried to clarify the concepts and issues involved in this book. As did Bev. In this book, as in all the others I’ve penned, she read everything in its first draft, offering helpful corrections and suggestions.

Kari McNair, our daughter, proofread the copy just before it went to the publisher, helping me preserve the fiction that I know how to spell and punctuate. Her son Jake (my grandson), a journalist, did the huge job of searching through scholarly literature on aging.

Authors often refer to their books as their baby. It’s a useful metaphor. Books begin in a moment of passion, and then need months of sometimes weary gestation. Birthing a book is sometimes difficult and painful and needs a team of skilled midwives. ’That’s the staff at Douglas & McIntyre. To them my sincere thanks. A special thanks to editors Derek Fairbridge and Caroline Skelton. They gave my baby the tender, tough and skilled treatment that improved it in so many ways.

Chapter 1

The Art of Growing Old

The happiest and the hardest time of life

If I had known I was going to live this long,

I would have taken better care of myself.

—Billy Noonan

Old age is awful.

Old age is delightful.

The best age is eighty-two!

Yes, it is. And those three sentences pretty well summarize this book.

No, I am not some dewy-eyed old geezer who’s been into the gin. There’s good, solid research backing this up. People are happiest in their early eighties!

Old age is the best of times and the worst of times. For some, it’s pretty much one or the other. For most of us, the early eighties are the best, most rewarding years of our lives, even though we constantly fuss over painful joints and disorganized organs.

Believe it!

A book and a pandemic

This book began taking shape in the middle of the global spread of the COVID-19 virus. This pandemic has probably been the most unrelentingly traumatic time since the Second World War. I live with a bunch of wrinkled jailbirds beginning to wiggle out of the virus gulag and back into life again after a year in solitary confinement.

Jailbirds? That’s certainly an overstatement! The seniors’ residence where we live is the closest thing to being in jail most of us have ever experienced. But I don’t think any jail ever had a staff of jailers who worked so hard to make it all bearable, safe and pleasant for the inmates. Even fun, quite often. Where else would you hear noisy music and laughter outside your door announcing three or four staff members dressed in crazy costumes, serving drinks and treats from a cart, and all to celebrate some obscure anniversary nobody’s ever heard of?

The pandemic has been tough slogging. Painful. Frightening sometimes. For everyone. Protecting us from the virus was no small achievement for caregivers of all kinds, especially those who manage the place where we live. We got through the whole time without a case of COVID. For the most part, they pulled it off beautifully and we are all grateful.

The Dorchester is a retirement residence, not a long-term or nursing-home facility. There’s a big difference. Retirement residences are like apartment buildings where tenants take care of themselves, but they also enjoy all kinds of perks like housekeeping, meals, bus service and social directors who dream up fun things to do.

Long-term care or nursing homes are more like hospitals, where staff care for those dealing with the myriad problems of advanced old age. It’s in these places, of course, that the COVID-19 virus took such a terrible toll. And some of them are very poorly run, which made things worse.

Those of us in retirement residences had an easier time with the pandemic than other seniors, especially those in nursing homes. Even so, my tottering friends and I became so very tired of all the necessary restrictions.

We kept hoping some Louis Pasteur or Jonas Salk would swoop in, white lab coat flying, and make it all go away. And in a way that’s exactly what happened. People in labs around the world worked exhausting hours to find a vaccine.

The first batch of vaccines arrived as I wrote this. A squadron of nurses, syringes in hand, punctured every left arm in the building. It really was something of a worldwide scientific, political, organizational miracle that the human race fought this virus the way it did. Not without a few bumps and jerks and squabbles. We’re not out of the woods by a long shot. But let’s celebrate that the recovery is going as well as it is.

A social experiment

COVID-19 has done its best to wipe out us troublesome oldsters who are sitting around, soaking up a vast portion of public health-care dollars. Who knew there were so many of us?

Well, mostly we knew in the sense that we had read or heard some statistics. But the reality of it hadn’t sunk in. Certainly, most Canadians haven’t really absorbed this fact. The reality of our creaky generation didn’t strike home even for us oldsters until we were gobsmacked by the procession of coffins during the COVID-19 crisis. It was so bad in some long-term care facilities in Ontario they even sent in military medics!

Leaders in the government and health-care establishments seemed not to realize just how many of us there were. Or, which is more likely, they were deliberately looking the other way. Sharilynn Upsdell, a chaplain at one of the care homes here in Kelowna, tells us that health-care workers are in desperately short supply, largely because the governments support their training and their salaries at a much lower level than apprenticeships in the building trades.

Some social scientists have called the COVID-19 pandemic the greatest social experiment in human history. The virus hit practically every country in the world and the cost in human suffering and human enterprise is beyond describing.

Health-care workers, scholars, businesspeople, academics—people of every tribe and stripe—saw oldsters getting mowed down like bowling pins. Where did this virus come from? What does this mean to us? What did we learn? It will take years to provide meaningful answers to those questions.

Through all this confusion, us old fogies are hacking out a whole new reality.

We’re wondering what life will be like for us when the pandemic is finally over and we no longer have to paste ourselves to the walls as we pass each other in the corridors and stairwells as if we’ve got terrible BO.

We’re wondering what the new normal will be like and how us oldsters will fit into it.

The promise under the pile

Steve Moran, who runs a blog called Leadership, tells the story of an optimistic kid who stumbles across a big pile of horse manure, immediately grabs a shovel, and starts digging.

A second kid comes along, holding his nose, just on the verge of throwing up. What are you doing? he demands.

With a pile of horse poop this big, the optimist replies, there must be a pony in there somewhere.

I’m no expert on anything, least of all aging. I know even less about COVID-19. I am a superannuated journalist living the reality of the last decade of my life. I’m eighty-six.

When I found myself in this age group, I did what I was trained to do. I started digging. I talked to a bunch of people. I read books and papers and periodicals until my eyeballs ached. And I lay awake some nights wondering what this was all about.

Like most journalists, I’m a generalist. I know a little bit about a lot of things, but not much about anything in particular. After a lifetime of writing, I think I know how to gather up information, stories and ideas and put them together in a way that makes sense for people—in a way that doesn’t bury them in technical bafflegab or terminal boredom.

I have this niggling feeling that it’s not a total accident that I happen to be here at this time. Maybe I’m getting a bit delusional in my dotage, but I have a deep sense of call—a warm hand on the small of my back gently urging me onward.

But here’s the problem. If I put all the information I’ve gathered into this book, it would run to five volumes. And it still wouldn’t do justice to the rich and wonderful ethnic and social mosaic that we find among the oldsters of our country.

I’m writing this from the privileged viewpoint of a heterosexual white male, happily married, financially comfortable. There’s nothing in here about First Nations people or about the vibrant cultures of Canadians of African, Asian and Latin American background. There’s a bit about people in the LGBTQ+ community but not nearly enough.

Another qualification. This book is not about people in long-term care or nursing home facilities. That’s another huge subject that needs a lot more media attention.

In other words, this book is about older seniors before they need to move into long-term care. I’m smack dab in the middle of that time of life and feeling the need to help tell the story of what this is like. For the benefit of my fellow seniors, yes, but also for our middle-aged children, our caregivers. I hope, possibly naively, that it’ll help them understand who we are and our place as the fastest-growing demographic.

Changing the conversation

I’m writing this book for people who want or need an easy introduction to really old people. I want them to know that old age is not a disease. It’s not a virus circling the world ready to pounce on anyone over eighty. It’s a tough time to live through, but also a time of opportunity and joy. Many, maybe even most, old people are