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Exploring the rewards and challenges surrounding later life

We often have unexamined views and opinions about getting older that have been absorbed from society, our families, teachers and peers. The media, entertainment and business are, to a large extent, age-phobic. Yet things are changing, many older people are no longer prepared to sit on the settee and watch TV for 20-30 years. There is so much we elders can be doing for ourselves, for our communities and for the planet.

My intention here is to explore the factors that would appear to lead to a joyful and rewarding ageing journey and to provide resources that may be helpful along the way. I will combine my personal perceptions and experience with those of research in the field and will reference sources where appropriate. You will also find useful information on most aspects of ageing in the resources section. From my experience and from the literature it is clear that whatever our chronological age we are able to change many aspects of our ageing process.

Exploring Ageing Through Fiction

As I approach 80 years of life, I have found myself increasingly engaged by fiction that deals with how people relate to the last part of their lives and to their pasts. I am beginning to feel that, on the whole, I’m done with the text book approach to ageing. That seems to me to make sense as the inner journey becomes increasingly central.

I should say that this an eclectic list but I have read and enjoyed most of them or they are on my bookshelf waiting patiently to be read. For each title I offer a one sentence précis of the book’s theme.

Graham Greene, Travels With My Aunt: Retired bank manager comes to life through his eccentric and dubious aunt. Funny.
Harif, Kent. Our Soul at Night: Themes of loneliness, duty and love in later life, moving.
Healey, Emma, Elizabeth Is Missing: Elderly Maud is slowly losing her memory, she feels a need to find a long lost friend and discover what happened to her sister who disappeared just after WW11.
Heller, Joseph, A Portrait of the Artist an an Old Man: Author of Catch 22 applies his raucous humour (and sensitivity) to ageing in this his last novel.
Hemingway, Earnest, The old Man and the Sea: Facing up to the knowledge that as we age our relationship with the world changes.
Hooper, Emma, Etta and Otto and Russell and James: At 82 Etta decides she has to see the Ocean 3,232 km away. Her husband, Otto, find a note saying she will try to remember to return and Russell, secretly in love with Etta his whole life sets out to find. Memories, regrets and futures.
shiguro, Kazuo, The Remains of the Day:  Coming to terms with a life lived.
Jacobson, Howard, Live a Little: Beryl and Shimi are the protagonists, her problem is that she forgets, his that he remembers. Sparks fly!
Jarmen, Julia, The Widows Wine Club: Three widows forsake a dreary bereavement group for a shared bottle of wine. In their sixties they decide to find their joie de vivre.
Jonasson, Jonas, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared: The title says it all, Allan climbs out of the window and legs it to avoid the 100th birthday party that the care home has organised and crazy adventures ensue.
Joyce, Rachel, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: Retired Harold in Kingsbridge, Devon, receives a letter from from Queenie who is dying in a hospice in Berwick. On a sudden impulse he leaves his unhappy me and memories of his dead son and sets out to walk to Berwick to visit Queenie.
Joyce, Rachel, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy: Companion novel to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Queenie's journey is to tell the truth about her love for Harold and the death of his son. 
Lively, Penelope, Moon Tiger: Claudia is approaching the end of her life and tells her carers that she is writing the history of the world. Memories flood in from childhood after WW1 to the present including her great love that was lost in the deserts of Egypt during WW2.
Lively, Penelope, Spiderweb: Retired anthropologist, Stella Brentwood, is 65 and moves to a village in Somerset. A loner, she if offered the chance of community, friendship and love in later life.
Nell, Joanne, The Great Escape from Woodlands Nursing Home: Holly Miller prefers birds to people but is stuck in her room after a fall. She and fellow resident, Walter, escape with hilarious results.
O’Farrell, Maggie, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox: Esme is institutionalized in the 1930s, why? Iris has never heard of her great aunt who is about to be released after many decades. As much about family secrets as it is about be old.
Pilcher, Rosamunde, The Shell Seekers: On discovering that one of her father’s paintings is worth a fortune Penelope begins the recall and review her life including her bohemian youth during WW11.
Roth, Philip, Sabbath’s Theater: Raucous delve into sexuality, grief and death.
Sackville-West, Vita, No Signposts in the Sea: Written just before the author’s death in 1961 the novel explores love and death and the responsibility that both evoke.
Shields, Carol, The Stone Diaries: “Born in 1905, Daisy Stone Goodwill drifts through the roles of child, wife, widow, and mother, and finally into her old age.” “she becomes a witness of her own life: her birth, her death, and the troubling missed connections she discovers between.”
Strout, Elizabeth, Olive Kitteridge: Olive is a retired schoolteacher, as she ages she struggles to make sense of her life. She will have you laughing, crying and wincing.
Strout, Elizabeth, Olive Again: Thirteen linked stories follows Olive from her ‘70s and into her 80s. Stories of memory, relationships and loneliness. Full of compassion for the lives of ordinary folk.
Strout, Elizabeth, Oh William: “At the heart of this story is the indomitable voice of Lucy Barton, who offers a profound, lasting reflection on the very nature of existence.” “This is the way of life,” Lucy says: “the many things we do not know until it is too late.”
Strout, Elizabeth, Tell Me Everything: Lucy Barton and Olive plus a number of, apparently, ordinary people living ordinary lives. Full of the beauty of small moments.
Trollope, Joanna, Mum & Dad: The parents have lived in Spain for decades and the adult children in England. A stroke brings out differences that strain their bonds.
Tyler, Anne, Beginner’s Guide to Goodbye: Aaron’s wife Dorothy dies in a freak accident and he does not cope well and at one point he conjures her up. A moving journey through grief and the realisation that theirs was not a happy marriage and on to a new way of living and relating.
Tyler, Anne, A Spool of Blue Thread: Tyler brings her wonderful skills to ageing and dying, she says, “been interested in death as one of the quintessential human experiences, having long comforted myself with the thought that if everyone else can do it, I can do it, too.”

What Makes a Joyful Ageing Journey?

 In truth I rarely thought about ageing until I was well into my  sixties and from my late seventies I can see that I was  scared and confused and saw the future as a gradual slide  downhill to a miserable end. I was depressed and confused  and not easy to live with!

 There is nothing quite like the end of a long term  relationship and moving to a new location to encourage a  person to reflect and question what life’s meaning and  purpose might be. For most of us the previous stages of life  meaning and purpose are quite clear: to grow, to learn, to  become autonomous, to fall in love, procreate, to help our  children flourish and for them to become independent  adults. But how do we find our meaning and purpose when we retire from paid work and the children have flown the nest? How might we become an effective elder in our families, community and the wider world? We are certainly needed more than ever!

I find it very difficult to point to one aspect of chronological ageing that needs our attention more than others, it might be said that focusing on our health is the most important and indeed many of the keys to good health will also apply to our sense of purpose and our emotional well-being. There is no doubt that our attitude to the inevitable changes that come as we age effects those changes, if we treat, or learn to treat, ourselves with friendliness and compassion our journey will be so much more enjoyable. Can we kindly smile to ourselves whilst standing in the middle of the kitchen and wondering why we are there? By the way, ask around your younger relations and friends and you will find that this is not a “senior moment” – let’s ban that phrase!

Below is a list of aspects of ageing that we have some control over physically, emotionally or intellectually. Change is inevitable and that can be hard at times but it can work in our favour, our brains are very flexible and designed for change. You can teach an old dog new tricks!

Click on any topic to explore it further:

• Health
• Exercise
• Diet
• Community
• Purpose and Meaning
• Nature
• Life Perspective
• Accepting Mortallity
• Joy
• Curiosity and learning
• Spirituality
• Becoming a Wise Elder
• Creating Legacy


I’m sure I've missed something! It does seem like a long list and should keep us busy for years but many aspects are interrelated and nearly everything on the list contributes to our health and well being.