One of the things about being a pastor is that you get to deal with a lot of old people. I suppose there are other careers in which people deal with old people, but in the medical field, the relationships are more lop-sided. That is, the relationship is more about "I'm young and healthy and here to take care of you in your infirmity."
In ministry, relationships with old people are more likely to be about working together. In some churches, the pastor even ends up in a position of needing help from the old people, who frequently hold the reins of power in congregations.
All of which is to say, I've had plenty of opportunity to work with old people aging. And one of the things it makes me realize most often is that I'm (hopefully) going to age too. And it might suck.
There is a older woman in my congregation who used to be in charge of everything. Well, maybe not everything, but everything important. And she was on top of it all. She is a detail person, accustomed to understanding the intricacies of complicated situations and remembering the comments that were made the last time such-and-such was discussed.
And what's sad is that now that she's older (she's actually become home-bound in the last couple years), she still assumes, as any of us would, that she is the same person, but in truth, she doesn't have the same hold on the details of life that she used to. It's very frustrating for her, I think. I get the sense that it seems for her like the world is just being more inconsistent and illogical and dishonest, when things don't turn out the way she's expecting because she actually is mis-remembering what was supposed to happen.
I can totally see that happening to me. And actually, I can imagine making the choice to just find the world annoying rather than admit that you aren't who you used to be. I hope that one of the things I'm learning by working with older people at a young age is how to age graciously. But does anyone really want to do that? How does that poem go? "Rage, rage, against the dying of the light"?
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I have to tell you, I've beeen thinking about the very same things this week. I've been in and out of hospitals, funeral homes, living rooms, and nursing homes more in the last two weeks than I have ever been, and the one thing it has made me think about more is aging, especially (as you put it) aging gracefully.
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