The importance of gleaning from lives well lived
- col-dave-mast
- January 3, 2024
- 527
It’s hard getting old.
I look at the elderly in our local nursing homes, The County Home and living at homes and think about the lives they have lived, the stories they have to tell and the regrets they may harbor.
Our seniors have so much to offer us as a community. Whether it is in the financial world, our families, at church or in local organizations, the experience and knowledge our seniors possess is vast. They have been through the rigors of life, met the challenges, experienced the good, the bad and the ugly, and they now possess a fount of knowledge that is oftentimes untapped by our community.
Our longtime retired generations possess boundless life experience and have lived through wars, hardships and everything life has thrown at the human race. They have been to places I’ve only seen on the internet.
They’ve loved, shared their lives with that special someone they betrothed themself to forever decades ago and they have done things that put many of us to shame.
While we run around life at a breakneck speed, they lived in a time when simple pleasures like relaxing on the porch with a giant glass of cold lemonade while conversing with family, friends and neighbors was the norm and not the exception.
They sat at the table with their family at night, held hands around the table and thanked the good Lord for the bountiful blessings in life, and cheerfully lent a hand to mend a fence rather than to build emotional ones.
While life has swept away the ability to run and play on the field of competition and perhaps the ability to work a 45-hour week at the brick factory and the joy of getting down on all fours and giving the children piggyback rides and bucking bronco thrills, their lives remain important, not just to them, but to all generations that follow.
I’ve always felt there is so much to learn from our senior citizens, yet we let life or a fear of ageism stop us from delving into this wealth of knowledge and experience so we can learn from their mistakes, gain from their accomplishments, and share the joy and fascination in their stories.
Our seniors aren’t going to be around forever.
Life has a way of sapping the dignity from our bodies as we age, leaving us with the visions of what we once were. At 60 I already fall back on old memories of former days when I could throw fastballs, keep pace with my 5-, 8- and 10-year-old sons, and climb trees like a monkey.
Ask any of my former baseball players and they’ll tell you how much I enjoy telling stories of my younger days when I could actually play the game instead of coach it.
Perhaps if we all looked at our matriarchs and patriarchs as coaches, we could gain a better grasp on having them convey their wisdom to us.
Players rely on coaches to guide them through the art of learning a craft or athletic skill. Why not parents?
Not only could generations my age learn about how to deal with the quickly approaching 70s, 80s and 90s that are right around the corner, but our children and grandchildren could gleam plenty from the people who worked very hard to get through some lean years as adults trying to raise a family on one income.
I often think about our churches, where the term “elder” is usually reserved for someone in their 30s, 40s or 50s who is physically vital. We almost forget that in our seniors we have people who are filled with passion and experience and have so much to offer.
Allowing ourselves to take a few magical moments to sit down with them and talk about their lives, what they’ve accomplished and what they’ve learned, and their regrets and things they would change could be a wonderful blueprint for us to utilize.
Our seniors aren’t going to be around forever, and if we are lucky, some day it will be us. Wouldn’t it be nice to have those younger visit us, invest in us and learn from us?
While they may not have lived in a world of amazing technology, automobiles that drive themselves, making payments without mailing them or computers that can find facts at the click of a finger, the experiences they have lived transcend technology and hit home where it matters the most — in relationships, in working hard and in the heart.
All of this glorious fount of knowledge is just waiting to be plucked from decades of living life, and it’s ours for free if we simply reach out and ask.