BERNIE
By Bernie Siegel, MD
GROW OLD ALONG WITH ME... THE BEST IS YET TO BE
M
y advice for growing old is to do quite the opposite: grow young, instead. Aging is not the end of the world, and ac- tually comes with benefits. I always remember the words
of George Halas, the owner of the Chicago Bears football team. When he was well into his 80s, a friend found him in his office on Sunday and asked him why, at his age, he was working on a Sunday. His response, “It’s only work if there’s someplace else you’d rather be.”
Just stop and think about this for a moment: how can you age if
your concept of time is lost? I know from my experience as a physi- cian that the healthiest state one can be in is the state in which you are doing something that makes you lose track of time. In the operat- ing room I have no sense of time or self; I am in a trance. I believe that in the moments we let our innate creativity take over, our physi- ology gives the body a profound message. The sad part is too many people wait until they are told they have a limited amount of time left to live before they start living their chocolate ice cream. That expression comes from one of our children who, when I
asked him what he would do if he had fifteen minutes left to live, said, “I’d buy a quart of chocolate ice cream and eat it.” What I had to learn is that we each have our own flavor and brand of chocolate ice cream. I have letters from people who moved, taken off their ties, signed up for violin lessons and did all the things they wanted to do before they died. So they were not denying their mortality but simply enjoying their lifetime, and their letters often end with, “I didn’t die and now I am so busy I am killing myself. Help, where do I go from here?” I tell them to take a nap because they are burning up and not out.
Now let me share some of the things I have learned from 90-year-
olds. One I shall never forget is a woman who, in her nineties devel- oped breast cancer and gall stones. She was quite upset with God for doing this to her at her age but accepted the surgery and moved on in her life. I asked her to join our cancer support group because I knew she had lessons to teach us about survival behavior. One day when everyone in the group was caught up in their fears and what problems the future held I turned to her for help and asked, “What are you afraid of?” After several minutes of silence she sat up and said, “Oh, I know! Driving on the parkway at night.” That resolved everyone’s issue as we went from fear to laughter.
I have also learned to not keep family problems from aging par-
ents. When I would call my 90-year-old mother to ask how she was, she would instead focus on the problems of her children, grandchil- dren and great grandchildren. She would focus on advising and as- sisting them to overcome their problems, giving her a sense of mean- ing and making her feel healthy. So use the wisdom of the aged, do not hide your problems from them and let them guide you. I loved it when I asked my mother what advice she had for se-
niors that I was going to lecture to. She said, “Tell them to lie a lot.” I asked how that would help and she said, “If you tell people how you really feel they’ll put you in a nursing home. So lie about it.” To survive we all need to have a sense of meaning in our lives,
and express our emotions, including anger, when we are not treated with respect. We need to make our own therapeutic choices, ask for help when we need it, respond to our feelings when making choices, maintain an authentic life and say no to what we do not want to do. Essentially, we need to find our way of expressing love while
keeping a childlike sense of humor. I ask seniors how they can die laughing. The answers relate to having accomplished what we are all here to accomplish: serving the world in a unique way, rather than a way imposed by others. My father literally died laughing as my mother told wonderful stories about their early relationship. When my father was tired of his body he said to my mother, “I
need to get out of here.” That is when we all gathered and made his transition an unforgettable one, giving the surviving family a different feeling about death. My father-in-law was a great teacher, too. He lived to be 97 in
a body rendered quadriplegic by a fall twenty years prior. When I asked him for advice for the elderly he said, “Tell them to fall on something soft.” A few days later he said to me. “It doesn’t always work. They stood me up in therapy and I fell on my wife and broke her leg. So tell them to just fall up.” I thought that was a joke until the evening he told us he was tired of his body, refused his dinner, evening vitamins and died that night. As far as I am concerned he just fell up. When love is involved and guilt is not a part of dying, how easy it can be to leave at the appropriate time; it is easier, then, for your loved ones to leave your bedside.
6 Essential Living Maine ~ November/December 2014
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