Growing old well

NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty writes (and speaks) a tribute to Fred Stocking, a man who taught at Williams College for over forty years.  Living and working here for the past twenty years, I came to know Fred mostly by reputation, and by sight: he was a common presence at College functions and around town.  He clearly inspired Hagerty, and many, many other students over the years.

This part of Hagerty's lovely piece resonated with me most:

As for me, Fred's letters became a road map for growing old well. He began painting at 80, taking lessons every Tuesday. At 91, he played Gonzalo in The Tempest at the community theater. When his body began to fail, he watched the process with a sort of bemused detachment. "I've had a lot of horizontal time," he quipped in one letter. At his 94th-birthday party, Fred demonstrated his new motorized stair chair lift by waving like the Queen as he purred up and down the stairs. Later, with far more gusto than any 94-year-old should have possessed — and with uncanny timing — Fred belted out his trademark song from Broadway, "Lulu's Back In Town."

That acceptance of aging, that "bemused detachment," has a Taoist ring to it, which becomes even more pronounced in the next paragraph:

As Fred's body shut down, he leaned all the more on his mind. It was a sort of tit for tat with age. You take away my driver's license; I'll read the new biography of Shakespeare. You dim my vision; I'll listen to books on tape. He was ecstatic when his wife gave him a new translation of War and Peace. He was 92 when I sent him an early draft of my book Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality. A year later, he sent back a seven-page critique, musing on the limits of scientific inquiry, the flaws of religious doctrine and the nature of death.

The tit for tat response to changing circumstance, even in the face of demise and  ultimately death, brings Zhuangzi to mind.  When one character in that book is asked if he resented his own physical deterioration and impending death he replies:

"No, why should I resent it?" replied Adept Cart.  "If my left arm's transformed into a rooster, I'll just go looking for night's end.  If my right arm's transformed into a crossbow, I'll just go looking for owls to roast.  And if my butt's transformed into a pair of wheels and my spirit's transformed into a horse, I'll just ride away!  I'd never need a cart again. (92)

Sounds rather like Fred, and like a good approach to growing old well...

Comments

[Melissa Laurel]

I like this! We need good examples!

[Drew Harrison]

Fred Stocking sounds like a person with endless positivism. Seeing the good side in every situation can be difficult for some people, let alone for someone experiencing physical deterioration. His positive outlook is very admirable.