It's never too late

 

In the beginning of the novel Missy is not living. She isn’t dead, she breathes and eats and sleeps. She goes through the motions, in agony, wishing for death. That is not living. That is existing, in the most painful way possible. I have been Missy. I have spent days, years of my life in agony, going through the motions, existing.


Angela and Sylvia are guardian angels. Pulling Missy into their makeshift family, bringing Bobby to her. Giving Missy a reason to live again. I think as a society we really need to re-examine how we refer to and treat our elderly.


So often we treat them as if their lives are over, you’ve had your career, raised your children, step aside, let us have the stage.


We discount their existence because it is unfathomable to us that they could start over again, have a career again now that their children are grown and gone. Have friends, go to parties, love their lives.


This is a very toxic concept I am coming to notice a lot in American culture, we dismiss our elders, family members are shuffled off to old age homes sometimes unnecessarily, it is always too much time, too much effort too much bother to check in on them, to make sure they feel loved and seen and supported.


I’m not blaming Missy’s children, obviously Alistar has taken pains to stay in touch with his mother despite the distance and her relationship with Melanie had quite a hiccup. But the novel did make me think. Why do we discount the elderly so much?


My Mom is older than most of the parents of my friends and fellow age-group. She waited to have children. I won’t say her exact age, one because we stopped counting birthdays when she was 47 and that would require math and two because my Mom is the most avid reader and supporter of everything I do and I don’t need my butt kicked.


My point in mentioning that my mom is older is to illustrate something for you guys. My Mom had a career, then she had two kids and homeschooled them until I was in high school and my sister was in college, my Mom worked part time from my seventh grade year on, at the library and then in an office…


My Mom has now, in the last two years, become a certified personal trainer and zumba instructor. My Mom does not work in an office, she does not do administrative work, she’s not a librarian or a schoolteacher. My Mom is in the fitness industry and she rocks at it. My Mom started a new career when most people are retiring.


We should not be discounting the generation or even a couple generations before us, they’re still very much alive. If they want to be completely out of the work force good for them, if they want to continue, start something new, go back to school, have friendsgiving and friendsmas and live a life that they love who are we to discourage them. We need to normalize paths like this, we need to normalize going back to work when the kids are grown, taking up painting or that instrument they never had the time to learn.


We need to normalize really truly living again and stop trying to put a box around portions of a persons life. We need to normalize cheering people on for choosing what the next chapter of their life should look like to them. 

 

The Love Story of Missy Carmichael by Beth Morrey

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Love_Story_of_Missy_Carmichael/y_LsDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0