By Natasha Josefowitz, ACSW, Ph.D.
LA JOLLA, California — There are new plays opening in San Diego; I will not see them. I won’t go indoors with crowds, nor have I been to a restaurant or museum in over two years. I have missed and am still missing many of the cultural events in my area. I have read that people in my age group (mid-90s) are forty percent more likely to die of a COVID variant than the general population.
I am staying away and thinking about all the other things I am currently missing: a ballet performance in Moscow, an opera in La Scala in Milan, a Shakespeare Festival in London, a new play by a famous playwright in Paris. When I add to this list the La Jolla Playhouse, the Old Globe, the San Diego Opera, and San Diego Symphony, I don’t feel so bad. I started thinking about all the things I will never see. There are all the books I will not get to read, the movies I will not watch, the people I will not meet, walks I will not take, and dogs I will not own. There are many things I will miss in my lifetime and will not even know what it is that I am missing.
I will not mourn what I can’t have. I will pay attention to what I do have, make a point of becoming aware of everything I have seen, heard, read, tasted, and felt. Actually, I never wanted to trek in the Himalayas, nor bungee jump, nor freeflying from an airplane; these are things I will not miss.
I was a family therapist for many years in a child guidance clinic. I had to put myself in the shoes of the single mother, a divorced woman, a widow (before I became one myself), living on food stamps, addicted, staying with an abusive husband, losing a child (before I lost one myself), being disabled, feeling lonely, neglected, abandoned, angry, afraid at all the unfairness of it all. It is walking in someone’s else moccasins, trying to help with both the reality of their situation and the feelings generated. In a way, it is an opportunity to experience a bit of another’s life.
There is a story of people sitting together and dumping their problems in a big pile for anyone to pick a different problem. It ended up with everyone retrieving their own. No matter how awful it is, one can learn to cope with their own reality and survive. In the past couple of weeks I have lost two good friends and a first cousin. At my age, losses are inevitable and keep happening. We need to celebrate the friendships and relationships we have had and appreciate the ones that are still with us.
I do what old people do: review a very long life and still look forward to an increasingly short future. It is becoming easier to give away my possessions and no longer acquire anything new; easier not go to the party, preferring to stay home; easier to appreciate every small kindness, every bit of attention given, every smile, nod, simple recognition. I am still here.
My mother died at 95. I am both ready to go now as well as stay past 100. I believe that energy never dies and so perhaps I will someday encounter my husband, my brother, and my son again. If I don’t, I won’t know that I haven’t. I am grateful to have had this amazing adventurous life and having made a difference in the lives of many others. I look forward to the opportunity to still make a small difference. The greatest gift one can give an old person is to make them still useful and needed. My only fear is to become a burden. I don’t want to use resources. I want to be one.
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Recalling the past, with its joys and sorrows, living in the present with great wonderment, and hoping to cope with unforeseeable challenges while looking forward to unimaginable adventures.
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© Natasha Josefowitz. This article appeared initially in the La Jolla Village News. You may comment to natasha.josefowitz@sdjewishworld.com