Fear of Growing Old

In a coffee shop sometime ago, I overheard two teenagers chatting:  

Girl 1: “My mom is sooo old, she'll never understand what I am going through.”

Girl 2: “If you think your mom's old,  mine's worse—she just turned 47!  Ugh, I can never talk to her about anything!”

It took colossal effort to keep myself from yelling, Hey, 47 is sooo young, you hear! 

Another time, three-year-old Adrian and I were walking toward a toy store when he asked, “Amah, are you old?”

“Of course not, I am very young!” I exclaimed. 

“Then you can't buy me anything in there. Young people don't have money,” he said, worried.

I laughed so hard I cried.

“Amah, you're crying and laughing. How come I can't do that?”

I was on crisis mode one day because Ate Vi kept tut-tutting, “Your white hair roots are so ugly! If you don't dye your hair soon, you'll look like Lola Meling.” White-haired Lola Meling is our neighbor in her 80s, but cleans to a sparkling shine her grandson's van every morning. 

Dyeing my hair had to be postponed because of an awful itch all over my head the day before.  Due to vigorous scratching, my scalp turned red and raw, which prompted me to see a dermatologist.

“What's wrong, ma'am?” the gentle young doctor with lush, long, naturally brunette hair asked. 

My thought balloon, I wish I had hair like yours! My outburst, “I will soon look like Lola Meling! Doc, if I don't dye my hair soon, I'll die!”  

She laughed, obviously used to similar outbursts from her own mother—or grandmother.  And dutifully, she gave me lotions and potions which cost me three month's lecture fee. 

There is a resistance (defiance even) against growing old!

I can count with my fingers the women over 40 who will say their age outright. Oprah discussed this with once-young-and-fresh models/actresses, now shriveled and, well, old.  They all bemoaned the fact that the world defines beauty by outward facade which withers with time.

A gay friend used to lament, “I hope I die at age 40, because I don't want to be an old gay.” 

We dread growing old so much that a word was invented to describe this irrational fear—gerascophobia.

But as I end the 6th chapter of my book on “retirement,” I have been properly reassured:  Caring grace comes with growing old.

In Isaiah 46: 3-4 (NLT), the Lord speaks—“I have cared for you since you were born. Yes, I carried you before you were born. I will be your God throughout your lifetime—until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.”

“Old” is not fading out, or drying up, or wasting away. It is being cared for by a loving God—in exactly the same way “young” is.