Old Age: a Gift from God

One lazy afternoon my youngest daughter and I were about to have our siesta, she noticed my gray hairs and said “Ma, I don’t want you to become old.” My reply to her was, “But that’s reality my dear, every one of us will become old someday.” She then said, “I will take care of you Mimay for sure when that time comes.” “What a sweet gesture would that be anak, though you are not obligated to do that,” I replied. I then assured her that I can manage myself (God willing) when that time will come where I will become a senior citizen fifteen years from now. I told my daughter that I can’t wait to become old and take care of my future grandchildren. And likewise, enjoy the benefits provided by the government for senior citizens like watching free movies every week, the 20% discounts on medicines, grocery items, foods and transportation, among others. Also, becoming a free lifetime member of Philhealth where you don’t have to worry about your hospital bills is a welcome privilege as well. Aside from that, if you have been employed in a government or private companies in your productive years, then you will be receiving your monthly pension. What a blessing that would be, we can be like Abraham whom the Lord has blessed so much even in his old age (Genesis 24:1). Nonetheless, my daughter reiterated that despite all the benefits I’ve mentioned above she will still take care of me in my senior years for she doesn’t want me to be alone and lonely and with that I am grateful.

On another note, let me share with you some insights of Fr. Joseph A. Galdon, S.J. about growing old in his book The Mustard Seed. Fr. Galdon said that we can look at old age as another gift from God, and not necessarily a burden to be borne in patient acceptance. Growing old isn’t necessarily a fact of chronological age. We are old when we look at the world with criticism and bitterness, instead of love and joy.

He further said that there are half a dozen ways to stay young even when the calendar goes beyond sixty-five or seventy. The first is to emphasize friendship. Friendship holds a lot of comfort and wonder and sometimes pain. But it is a great thing to remember old friends and collect new ones when one gets older. Another way to stay young says Fr. Galdon is to be yourself. The leisure of old age opens up all kinds of possibilities to do the things you never had time to do when you were young. All of us know persons who started something new when they were older—be it a business or a hobby. We know how happy they are even into old age.

Certainly, as we get older, we have to watch out for the traps of old age, according to Fr. Galdon. The said traps can turn us into old people very quickly. Two of the worst traps of old age are worry and criticism. Problems become more serious in old age. One begins to worry about health or income and security. There are often painful losses and older people find themselves alone much more. But older people should always smile. They have been through it all before and they know there’s nothing to worry about. The other trap of old age is criticism. It comes from fear and insecurity and lack of self-confidence. Criticism is often a defense mechanism that we slip into in order to hide our insecurity. The problem is that when we are critical, everything beautiful in life becomes ugly and we chase all our friends away just when we need them the most. In the end, as a reminder Fr. Galdon quoted a song from Bing Crosby that said “You’ve got to accentuate the positive; eliminate the negative.”

With that, may we learn to show concern and love for our elderly and ponder on what is said on 1 Timothy 5:1 “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers.”