https://books2read.com/The-Art-of-Growing-Older
https://www.amazon.ca/Art-Growing-Older-Attitude-Ability/dp/0228631904
When I was in my twenties and thirties and saw an obituary of someone who died when they were in their late sixties or in their seventies, I always thought what a good long life they had had. I am now 76 years old and I don’t think I am old enough to die yet. In fact, I've found that being a senior can be just as enjoyable as being a child, or a teenager, or an adult. Each has their own learning curves, their own ups and downs, and their own highlights. No one should fear growing older. It should be embraced because it is better than the alternative. As the saying goes: Growing older is a human right that is denied to many.
I have written a memoir about my life and how I learned that the oldest documented person to have lived, Jeanne Calment, was 122 years 164 days when she died. I thought if she could live that long, then so could I. The Art of Growing Older is my past journey and my future plans to live as long, or longer, than Jeanne. Maybe I can set a new record.
Here is the first chapter of my memoir.
The Art of Growing Older
It’s Not Age: It’s Attitude and Ability
Dedication:
Gwen, Roy, George, Avenel, Carson, Lois.
And To
Salliann, Ron, Eli, Yvonne, Iris, Michael, and Matthew who, sadly, never made it halfway to their life’s potential. To Ruth, and Syd who made it to their seventies.
I was eighteen and in my last year of high school when Canada’s Centennial celebrations were held in Montreal in 1967. I put down a deposit of $10.00 to book a place on a school-sponsored trip to those festivities. Then my boyfriend asked me to marry him and I said yes. I cancelled my trip and began my wedding plans. The marriage lasted eight years.
Since then I have joked that I have to live to 120 years-of-age so I could go to Canada’s Bicentennial celebrations. I would be 118 in 2067 so I figured that by living to 120, I would have a couple of years to remember and talk about my experience.
Then, in 2017, Canada celebrated its 150th birthday and I turned 68 years-of-age. I was surprised that fifty years had already passed since I first made that statement. I realized that I was half way to Canada’s bicentennial.
Although it started out as a joke I have learned that it is not an unrealistic quest, that I could conceivably live to 120 years-of-age. Every year thousands of people around the world are reaching their 100th birthdays and becoming centenarians; many are even becoming super centenarians by turning 110. Some are reaching 115 and 117 and 119 years of age. One woman has actually lived to 122 years, 164 days.
If she could do it then why couldn’t others. Why couldn’t I? I could think of no reason why I couldn’t so I decided to give it a try, to work at living to 120 years of age or longer.
Too bad, though, that for those first fifty years I didn’t look after my body, and therefore my health, as well as I should have.
Part One
My Life Before Cancer
Chapter 1 My Childhood
I was born in New Westminster, B.C., Canada, part of the first wave of the Baby Boomer generation. When I was two-years-old my parents moved to a farm near Edmonton, Alberta, and a couple of years later into the city of Edmonton. Mine was a normal childhood for the time, which meant nutritious food and plenty of outdoor activity.
The house we lived in was small but the back yard was large. There were rows of raspberries and strawberries dividing it into a lawn and a garden spot. Every summer, Mom put in a huge garden. We had fresh berries when they were ripe, vegetables when they were ready, and she canned dozens of jars for over the winter. She also canned pears and peaches, which she bought from the store. There were always oranges, apples, and milk for snacks in the refrigerator. Mom also made homemade white bread.
Every morning we had hot oatmeal for breakfast. It wasn’t until I was in my teens that I was allowed to have cold packaged cereal on the weekends although my parents still ate their porridge. My siblings and I came home from school for lunch which was usually soup or salmon sandwiches or macaroni. For our suppers we ate the left over roast beef and trimmings from our Sunday meal, or canned beans and bread, scrambled eggs and toast, or pancakes and natural peanut butter. This was before the manufacturers added hydrogenated vegetable oil, salt, and sugar to the peanut butter to insure a longer shelf life, so there was always oil on the top when we opened the lid. My dad used a butter knife to blend the oil back into the mixture before we ate it.
All our meals were homemade. We never went to restaurants and there weren’t packaged or prepared frozen meals on the market. We couldn’t afford any junk food or fast food that might have been available at the time. We never had chocolate bars or candy in the house except on Halloween. On that night I tried to stay out as long as possible to get as many goodies as I could. I ate everything else in my bag except the hard candy which usually lasted until Christmas because I didn’t really like it.
The only down side by today’s standards was that we ate strictly white bread, first home made and then later store bought, and margarine.
Even at an early age I loved food and was a big eater. I would eat the lunch my mother prepared, then hurry over to my girlfriend’s house and have lunch with her and her parents. Her mother made the best chicken noodle soup.
During grades three, four, and five, each spring all the children in the school I attended were given a three-month supply of cod liver oil capsules to take. I still remember how terrible they tasted. I used to drop the capsule in my hot porridge and stir it around so that I didn’t know which mouthful I would be eating it.
I had the usual childhood diseases, such as chicken pox, measles, and mumps and none of them were very serious. I never broke a bone nor had any serious accidents. I do remember going to visit the doctor for boils that I would get under my arms. One time he decided to lance one without giving me any painkiller or freezing it first. Even now I can feel the knife slicing through the skin and him squeezing the pus out. I was given a lotion to put on them and as I grew older they disappeared.
I was a child before television and I basically lived outside with my friends. We played games, rode our bikes, skated in the winter, walked to school. At school we had recess, physical education, and track meets to train for. I had a very active childhood. I also got my first job at age ten.
A woman in the neighbourhood made corsages and she hired some of us children sell them a week before Mother’s Day. She would give each of us a box containing about eight corsages of different colours and we would go to separate streets.
At each house I climbed the front stairs and knocked on the door. When it was opened I showed the different corsages and explained who had made and how much they were worth. If a man answered, he usually bought one for his wife. If a woman answered, it was a much tougher sell. But I made enough money to buy my mother a bouquet of artificial flowers for Mother’s Day.
When I turned twelve I started earning my own money through paper delivery and babysitting and that is when my food choices really changed. A few times a week I went to a nearby restaurant for chocolate sundaes or French fries with friends after school or we’d meet on weekends. We still didn’t have what today we term as junk food in the house so I had to buy my own. I bought chocolate bars and ate two at a time. If the people I was babysitting for left a large bag of chips out for me to snack on, I would eat the whole bag. I was suddenly getting plenty of sugar and fats in my diet.
I also began bingeing at home, making myself bread and jam or bread and cheese sandwiches before supper. Not just one or two, but until I was full. And then I would eat supper an hour later.
Because she now worked, Fridays were the only day that mom still made bread and that was because dad, who worked out of town during the week, was coming home for the weekend. I sometimes bought the family a chocolate cake and chocolate swirl ice cream for dessert with our Friday night suppers.
My first real job was at a small, drive-in restaurant, which I had to walk about two kilometres to. The owner let the staff eat hamburgers, fries, milkshakes, and ice cream at a discount. My next job was in a Kentucky Fried Chicken, (KFC as it is known today), outlet which was closer to my home. There, staff could eat all the chicken we wanted. I indulged until eventually the novelty wore off.
As I advanced into junior high school there were new and varied sports introduced to our physical education. I began playing basketball, volleyball, baseball, and badminton. I even learned a few dance steps. Since I was good at sports I belonged to the school’s volleyball and basketball teams. We practiced two days a week after school and travelled to other schools to play games and tournaments.
In high school I also belonged to the school teams. And I still walked everywhere because it was unheard of for my parents to drive me to my friend’s house, or downtown, or to high school football games at other schools. Swimming and figure skating were two more activities I took in gym class.
One memory stands out very clearly from my teen years. It was to have an effect on the next four decades of my life.
When I was in grade nine one of my teachers decided that as a gracious community gesture our class would hold a spring tea for the seniors who lived in a nearby lodge. And to bridge the generation gap each of the students would “adopt” one of the seniors as an honorary grandparent.
“When your adopted grandparent arrives, he or she will be shown to their place at a table and it will be your responsibility to serve them tea and cake and to get to know them,” my teacher explained.
On the day of the tea we decorated the gymnasium with balloons and streamers and waited. Because this was such a novel idea there was a television reporter and cameraman from the local television station to cover the event. Later that evening I watched myself and some of the other students on the news.
Finally the seniors’ bus pulled up. The boys who had been assigned to help them off the bus rushed out. From just inside the gymnasium doorway I watched the sea of white heads as the old men and women slowly made their way down the hall. The women were dressed in their best outfits with their sparse hair done up and rouge on their wrinkled cheeks. The men wore ill-fitting suits or pants and shirts. Some walked on their own, some used walkers or canes, and some were helped. This was before most places were wheelchair accessible so no one who may have been in a wheelchair attended.
I was one of the greeters and I stood at the door waiting to welcome them. As each approached I pinned a corsage on the women’s dresses and men’s shirts or suit coats. Most of them smiled or said thank you but a few looked lost as if they weren’t sure where they were or what they were doing here. Once they had their corsage they were escorted to their tables, which were set so that there would be two “grandparents” and two “grandchildren” at each one.
When everyone was seated I went to the long table holding the pieces of cake and picked up two plates. I carried them to the table where my “grandmother” sat and introduced myself.
“What do you take in your tea?” I asked.
“Just a little sugar,” she said, her voice shaky.
I went to the tea pots and poured her a cup. I didn’t drink tea so grabbed a glass of juice and returned to our table. I had a difficult time relating to my adopted grandmother. Conversation was hard. Three of my natural grandparents died before I knew them. I don’t ever remember doing anything one-on-one with the grandmother who was part of my life. She was always at family gatherings but as a child I don’t recall us ever spending a day or even an afternoon together.
I looked around the room. While most of the seniors seemed happy with the tea, I felt pity for them. I didn’t like the idea that they needed to be adopted, like a stray cat or dog or someone no one else wanted. I felt sorry that they were old.
As I walked home after school I thought about the afternoon. I knew that I never wanted to be in the position where I had to have strangers “adopt” me. I never wanted to be old.
And that was when, at the age of fifteen, I decided that I would commit suicide when I reached sixty-five years of age. I would not go through those years of my life as a lonely, old woman waiting for someone to be nice to me.
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