Tag: old age in literature

Old Folks and True Love

Since moving into a neighborhood of mostly retirees, I have been stunned by the exemplars of true love that I have encountered.  Not true love in the sense of mindless passion, but in the sense of real people doing superhuman things for the people that they are committed to.  True love is not determined by wine and roses – or even by white weddings and gender-reveal parties.  True love is sticking with someone you are committed to even when the passion is gone, even when it is not easy, even when they are not exactly sure who you are.

We think of true love as the province of the young; there are few classic stories of old lovers (and there are even fewer rom coms).  But there are some.  In his Metamorphoses, Ovid shares the tale of Baucis and Philemon, an old couple who live together in poverty with their pet goose:

They had married young, they had grown old together

In the same cottage; they were very poor,

But faced their poverty with cheerful spirit

And made the burden light by not complaining.

It would do you little good to ask for servants

Or masters in that household, for the couple

Were all the house; both gave and followed orders. (Humphries translation)

“Both gave and followed orders” – perhaps the recipe for a good  marriage.  Most old marriages do seem to have given up traditional delineations of responsibility – old women mow the lawn, old men run the vacuum.  They do what needs doing.

But, back to Baucis and Philemon.  As in many stories, the gods (Jupiter and Hermes in disguise) come to town and find no hospitality, find no doors open to them, until they get to the old couple, who dig into their meager stores to feed the unexpected guests.  When they realize they are entertaining divinity, they even decide to sacrifice their beloved goose to give the gods a good meal.  Zeus stops them from this act, saves their house when he floods the rest of the inhospitable town, and grants their wish that they may live together until they die, serving the gods.  Then, Philemon makes a final request: that they not outlive each other: “that I may never see the burial of my wife, or she perform that office for me.”  So, in due time, while they are “talking about old times,” they simultaneously metamorphize into trees – an oak and a linden – which stand intertwined.

Now, old couples might hope they die at the same time, but they seldom do.  What usually happens, in stages or spurts, is that one has to take care of the other through physical or mental infirmities.  It is not easy; it is often unbelievably hard.  Newborns and toddlers are tough on a marriage, but we know they are going to grow up (and be difficult teenagers) and eventually leave home.  And we were younger then.

In the enthusiasm of new love, younger folk may say, “I’d do anything for you!”  When they married, they swore to stick it out through sickness and health.  No one had any idea of what that all really might mean. Think of the old man who has to wake up to help his wife to the bathroom or clean up after her if she doesn’t make it.  Think of the old woman who has to tell her spouse for the 100th time that day that she isn’t his mother.  Then think of these same people holding hands on the porch.  This is life for many, and they seldom complain about it and almost never throw in the towel.

The divorce rate for elders has been increasing – from 1.4 to 6 per 1,000 for women and from 1.4 to 8 for men – but the rates for seniors are nothing compared to those for younger folk (which run closer to 20-50 per thousand).  I can’t think of any “gray divorces” among my acquaintances, but I know they do happen.  What happens more often, in my observation, is that commitment deepens with age. Once in a while, perhaps, a spouse gets sent to the memory care home or nursing facility sooner than we might think necessary.  But I never judge.  One cannot know what the demands have been or what the capabilities are.  For the most part, old married people are heroes.

And it is not just the big stuff.  There are also illnesses, joint replacements, falls, cataract surgery, and endless dental work.  There are special diets and walkers and installation of balance bars all over the house.  Sometimes the stress spreads equally over time between the partners; sometimes not.  But let’s call their devotion what it is: true love.

The presence of a purpose often seems to focus the caretaker’s life.  This does not mean it is easy or pleasant; nor should the challenge be underestimated.  Nevertheless, it is a common occurrence that the caretakers themselves do not live long after their duties are ended, their partners are gone.

So watch your romantic comedies, drool over white brides and roses, fixate on Romeo and Juliet.  But I know where the real romance is taking place, where “till death do us part” means something tangible, where “devoted” is a verb and not an adjective.

This week’s story is not about old love – if you want to read about that you might try “Again and Again and Again” or “Slip Slidin’ Away.”  But for a laugh and a ponder, there is this week’s “A Life of Twelve Toes in Six Pages.”  (Don’t ask me where I get these ideas!)

Old Folks in the Stories That Formed Us

Salman Rushdie had an essay in the Sunday New York Times last week about what we learned from the books we loved in our younger days. While Mr. Rushdie’s juvenile reading list was very different from mine, I agree with his conclusions: “I believe that the books and stories we fall in love with make us who we are, or, not to claim too much, the beloved tale becomes a part of the way in which we understand things and make judgments and choices in our daily lives.”  If this is true – and surely it is, at least in part – then what did those beloved books and stories tell us about getting old?  In the books of my youth, there seemed to be two kinds of old people – the  nasty ones (think of Aunt March in Little Women) and the nice ones (Mr. Laurence, also in Little Women).  Mr. Laurence has an  initially gruff exterior, but gradually reveals his good heart.   In fact, many of the aged characters in the books I read in my youth were first described as gruff and perhaps miserly, until “warmed up” by a young character.  This was the case with Mr. Laurence (warmed up by Beth), with the old Grandfather in Heidi, and with Silas Marner (perhaps middle-aged rather than old and brought back from his miserly life by his little charge Eppie).  

In fairy tales, the witches were often old (and ugly), while fairy godmothers could be young or old (but were always beautiful).  Old folks were often feeble or bedridden (think of Red Riding Hood’s grandmother).  Or silly.  There was an old woman who was stupid enough to swallow a fly, and Old Mother Hubbard had so many children she didn’t know what to do.  No role models there. 

In the Bible (I was a Sunday School child), living to be old was a sign that God liked you if you did the right things: “You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you will possess” (Deut. 5:33).  If you’re good you will thrive in old age: “Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing.” And we should particularly be good to our old parents if we want to live long ourselves: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you” (Exodus 20:12).  Then there was old Simon in the New Testament who just wants to see the Messiah and die.  None of this particularly interested my younger self.

But when we were young, we were not looking for models of elderly people in literature.  We were looking for coming of age stories – stories that gave us hope, or at least some comfort that we were not alone in our angst.  In our old age, we are looking for a Vollendungsroman, a story about the end of life, the winding down.  It may be time to go back to those old stories.  Rushdie suggests that we may find a new emphasis in old stories.  “A book may cease to speak to us as we grow older, and our feeling for it will fade. Or we may suddenly, as our lives shape and hopefully increase our understanding, be able to appreciate a book we dismissed earlier; we may suddenly be able to hear its music, to be enraptured by its song.”

I reread Heidi a couple of years ago, and, while originally the spunky little girl was of the most interest to me, now the hero of the piece was the grandfather.  Alone and self-sufficient (and more than a little irascible) on the mountain with his goats, he is eventually able to garner the effort to take a little girl into his life.  I also had forgotten about Peter’s blind grandmother, to whom Heidi reads and with whom she develops a touching bond.  These characters were always in the book, but they escaped my younger imagination.   As a teenager, I was particularly taken with Salinger’s Franny and Zooey; going back to it I am reminded of the picture the young people conjured up of the imaginary Fat Lady for whom Seymour tells them they must perform – she is old and fat and cancerous and the very reason for life itself.  Michelangelo’s God is a very old man.  Christ is forever young, but God is always old. 

In any case, this is what Rushdie’s column made me think about.  Maybe it will inspire you to think about the stories that formed you and what they taught you about getting old – and what they could still teach you.

I continue to admire Franny and Zooey so much that I paid homage to Salinger in naming the characters in one of my novels (Order of the Stock Farm Jesus) – although I changed the spelling to Zoë and both characters are female (Salinger’s Zooey is the brother).  And while there is no Fat Lady in my story, it contains a formidable grandmother and a limestone Jesus.  There is an excerpt from that novel here.