My grandmother Nini was a flapper and silent film star; at 90 she could still charm the socks off anyone. “If she was around when a date of mine showed up,” my sister Melissa recalls of our long-ago teenage years, “my date would be mesmerized. I’d be like, ‘Come on, let’s get going,’ and he’d say, ‘What’s the rush?’ Then he’d keep hanging on her every word.”
My older relatives didn’t tell us kids much about Nini’s past, but I suspect she was pretty frisky in heir youth — and possibly during her widowhood, too. “I remember her flying up to visit us once,” Melissa says. “And when I asked how her journey was, Nini said, ‘Terrible. Not one single man tried to pick me up all day.’ She was seventy at the time.”
In my family, we tend to ignore aging as something that happens to other people. But I agree with Fred Astaire, who said, “Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.” It’s only practical to take an early interest in how you’re going to stay comfortable, safe, and happily engaged in the world when you reach what the Spanish call “the Third Age.”
I live in a county where a quarter of the population are Third Agers attracted by the great weather, laid-back lifestyle, and access to city, beach, and mountains. The area abounds with senior services, most of which I fervently hope I never have to use. But this week I learned about one I’m ready to embrace right now: the Villages, an informal network of neighbors helping neighbors with daily life, so we can all keep on aging gracefully at home.
“It started in Boston, in Beacon Hill,” I was told by Sara, 75, a long-time volunteer with the Villages in nearby Mill Valley. “The story I heard was about an older couple in winter who had some kind of blockage in the roof, probably an ice dam. And they found themselves at night, one of them belaying the other off the roof with a rope tied around this chimney, trying to chip away the ice dam. After they got down safe they said, ‘You know, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this. We want to stay in our house, but let’s see if there’s something we can do about that.’ So they started organizing.”
“When we initially started Beacon Hill Village,” co-founder Susan McWhinney-Morse told PBS in 2013, “there were 11 of us who got together one cold November day with this abstract determination that we’re not going anywhere. But we wanted to be responsible by not going anywhere. We didn’t want to have to depend upon our children who might live in the next community, or might live across the country. And so after two years we formed this organization that seemed to fit our needs. And it was at that point we began to understand that maybe we had tapped into a whole movement.”
Since 2001, the community-based, nonprofit, grassroots Village Movement has grown to include hundreds of American towns, where volunteers help members with everything from errands to gardening to cozy chats. Many volunteers later become members; lots of people are both at the same time.
The Village to Village Network provides tools, advice, and encouragement to communities wanting to create their own Village, so more of their Third Agers can continue living in their homes, giving and getting support with daily life, avoiding isolation and boredom. As a side benefit, relatives become less inclined to freak out and pressure older folks about trading their independence for a sedentary half-life in a facility.
“How did I not know about this?” I said to Rich. “It’s been happening in our town for fifteen years, and nobody mentioned it? Let’s find somebody who can fill us in.”
Suellen, an 82-year-old volunteer who serves on the steering committee for San Anselmo Village, met us at a nearby coffee house.
“Mostly people hear about us by word of mouth,” she told us. “In addition to driving people to doctor’s visits and grocery shopping, we do companionship visits, phone calls, pet walking, tech help. There are people with low vision who want information read to them…” The list goes on and on.
I wanted to dig into the numbers, so Suellen told me San Anselmo Village has 69 volunteers. There are about the same number of paying members whose fees cover the cost of a small support staff to organize member activities, such as book clubs and hiking groups, and arrange service visits from volunteers.
“What happens if a member can’t afford the fees after a while?” I asked.
“We have scholarships; that’s handled quietly. We get grants and donations. Occasionally people will buy a membership for their parent because they live far away.”
I asked about Suellen’s own experiences as a volunteer. “So my first time I’m going out, I’m meeting this woman who’s blind, and I’m taking her for a walk.” She pantomimed panic. “Oh, my God, she lives upstairs. And she uses a walker, which is way down there. I ask, ‘How do we get there?’ And she tells me, ‘I usually put my arm on the person’s shoulder. Okay, you walk in front of me. And I’m gonna hold on to the handrail.’ And so we go walking around her neighborhood. That was a nice day.”
As my brother Mike always says, “Old age is not for wimps.” Sooner or later you will need every shred of physical courage, moral resilience, and capacity for kindness and self-compassion that you possess. Our bodies will surprise us in ways we never thought possible. Our minds will struggle with … wait, what was I saying? Frankly, it can be pretty annoying. And depressing.
But it can also be exhilarating. The Buddhists speak of this phase of life as the culmination of all the years of hard work we have put into learning what it means to be human.
Now is the time to ask myself whether I turned out to be the kind of person my childhood self hoped I’d become. Am I a good friend, reliable neighbor, responsible citizen? Along with losses (I can’t stay up all night dancing any more or eat jalapeños) what have I gained? A little wisdom? Some perspective? The transcendent joy of feeling connected with the vast web of life in the universe?
My grandmother stopped going to Sunday mass at 65, claiming the priest gave her permission. “If you haven’t stored up enough merit in heaven by now,” he allegedly said, “you never will.”
But Rich and I were told you can’t have too many good deeds to show St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, so we’ve decided to sign up as volunteers with our town’s Village project. We’re joining the thousands of neighbors living the words of St. Basil: “A good deed is never lost. Those who sow courtesy reap friendship, and those who plant kindness gather love.” Amen to that!
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