You may hear people talk about grief and loss from losing loved ones, but it is also there in these smaller events as we traverse the aging process. Because we are letting go of much of our earlier years and assumptions that things would remain the same. Validating our feelings in each and every one of these situations while knowing that sadness can be a cleansing as we move on through life and take each step into the unknown. Embracing the newness that aging offers and leaving behind and at the same time cherishing our memories.
To have this be a time of wonder and joy, as well as coming to the deep emotional understanding of our own aging process and finally death, has taken many of us to new places of understanding and a kind of liberation of who we think we are. Yes we are left with orphan status when our parents pass on. But it is much more than that.
The opportunity for a forgiving and almost innocent relationship is on offer. As the older person relinquishes the world, and has less and less interest in the things that held a focus in the past, a new more inward looking, sometimes subtle, change occurs.
It is at this time, from my experience and talking with others that the care can change from the physical to a more bringing forth of the joy and innocence of a remembering, and this may look? childlike.
But it is I think the natural remembrance of where we came from in the first place. And a longing can set in for the passing on to occur.
This looks to us like acceptance.
Or it can look a little like a sort of dementia, where the person has one foot in this world and one in another.
The readiness for this major event is natural. However it can be aided by our acceptance, standing back, loving, helping and just being present. While we miss and grieve for those who are passing or have passed, this is not about us. It isn?t about hanging on, to the physical, trying to get the status quo to remain or blanking out what we don?t want to happen. This is only fear of our own reluctance to face our own mortality, and can be looked at square on and released without much to do.
Recently I spoke about the joy of meditating with friends, not just with acquaintances. This I mentioned is particularly important with the elderly and those readying themselves to pass on.
Lastly I want to mention the role of forgiveness, which is something that often starts to happen naturally for some older people, and can be encouraged in storytelling and journaling, about their life. All lives have the wonder of history and therefore interest of ongoing generations.
But here I want to mention the forgiveness work necessary for the caregiver to feel free of burden, worry and anxiety about the future, and their part in the demise of the elderly. The outcome would be the acceptance of death and passing on as an occurrence of inevitability. The love with which we do this is up to us and takes using the processes of forgiveness on a daily basis. We are not separate entities but totally connected to each other on a plane of knowledge that because the elderly, having done their worldly duties, is now opening up to and being revealed in unique ways not to be missed.
It takes seeing the elderly as whole and innocent, seeing beyond the body, with the eyes of spiritual wonder to the empowering knowledge that a life well lived, whatever it has looked like is what it is, and is to be loved.
Written by OPY contributor, Margo Knox, http://www.babyboomerswithpurpose.com
Please share your stories, insights and challenges on this subject in the Comment section below.
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