Aging Baby Boomer Blues

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Jul 15, 2024

As a teenager, I listened to a rather sweet but melancholic tune on my Radio Shack transistor radio. Here are the lyrics:

Old friends
Old friends
Sat on their park bench like bookends
A newspaper blown through the grass…

Winter companions, the old men
Lost in their overcoats…

Can you imagine us years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange to be seventy

The tune came to mind on my 70th birthday when I officially joined the ranks of the elderly. St. Damian of Molokai referred to the lepers as “you lepers.” When he contracted leprosy himself, he said, “We lepers.” During my sacramental visits to retirement homes, I now say, “We old people.”

The secular and Catholic views of aging have much in common. Doctors joke that they treat people to heal them until the 50th year. After 50, they treat people to extend their lives. Many of us have a deep sense of gratitude for the miracle of modern medicine.

Death is an unpleasant reality, but suffering can be even more distasteful. We pay close attention to our medical plans to navigate the Rubick’s Cube of health care. We discover that as chronic infirmities increase, not only do we fill those Sunday through Saturday plastic containers with pills, but we also have difficulty identifying unpleasant pharmaceutical side effects as we take reasonable steps to extend our lives. We even bargain with God (perhaps I’m projecting here) offering to continue our apostolic work if He keeps us healthy.

Facing our mortality becomes increasingly elusive. We use platitudes like “the cycle of life” to distract us from the reality of aging, suffering, and death. Death is almost unbearable, so we no longer speak of funerals or requiem Masses. We prefer “celebrations of life.”

We’ve been delusional about life and death for decades—or maybe since Adam. In 1987, author Ben Wattenberg reported his demographic survey in his book, The Birth Dearth. A self-professed optimist, he said it was painful to anticipate the reality of a significant population decline in the decades ahead. He accurately predicted the steep decline in population replacement rates—the legacy of contraception and abortion—and the effect on the economy. He even wrote that a wise investor should invest in geriatric care. As baby boomers age, the number of retirement homes multiply. Many of us missed those hot investment opportunities.

Spoiled baby boomers (like me) tend to sugarcoat reality. Today, countless retirement homes try to disguise the difficulties of our twilight years. In the 1990s, one of the retirement homes I visited carried the name “Sleepy Hollow.” Today, the homes have disingenuous upbeat names such as “Sunrise” and “Brightview” with “Vibrant Living” directors. The new names merely place lipstick on a pig—to press a rude metaphor. For my money, I still prefer Sleepy Hollow. Better yet, how about “The Frequent Nap Retirement Home.”

As Catholics, we should have a mature and honest understanding of aging, suffering, and death. We know God created us to live forever in glory. The Book of Wisdom (cf. Wis. 1-2) reveals that God did not make death, nor does He delight in human suffering. The envy of the devil brought death into the world. Suffering and death are not a part of the “cycle of life.” The unpleasantries are unnatural consequences of the cycle of sin: Original Sin and our personal sins.

During His public ministry, Jesus heals the sick and raises the dead. His healings are signs of His power over life and death, just as His Cross and Resurrection promise everlasting life. He sends forth His disciples to do the same and to suffer with those who suffer and share in the healing and compassionate ministry of Jesus.

Anyone who has experienced chronic suffering knows how lonely suffering is, even when surrounded by a loving family. The pain and uncertainty are mostly incommunicable. The Psalms teach us to beg God not to abandon us, as Jesus prayed on the Cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer; and by night, but find no rest.” (Ps. 22:1-2)

Sustained by God’s presence, the lamentation concludes with enduring hope: “From thee comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord! May your hearts live forever!” (Ps. 22:25-26)

Grace perfects our fallen nature. Priests visit the sick and administer the sacraments, above all the Blessed Eucharist. They anoint the sick with sacred oils conferring special graces that help sick people courageously endure their suffering for their salvation.

St. James describes how the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick strengthens us during life-threatening earthly confrontations: “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders [priests] of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” (James 5:14-15)

Many of our children have little appreciation for the sacraments, sometimes the unhappy result of Baby Boomer neglect of the faith. The elderly have a perfect right—and duty—to remind their kids of their desire to receive the sacraments in their twilight years.

“How terribly strange to be seventy.” Tell me about it. God does not grant His grace in advance. He sustains us with His grace to follow in the footsteps of St. Paul: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim. 4:7)