The twilight years: now is the time to love

Our mortal bodies, including our brain, get old and fall apart. My friend says that the aches and pains that comes with aging is God training us to surrender that which He has lent to us—our strengths and talents. Over time, we will have given back to Him everything He has given us, now ready for the final surrender of our heart to His Sacred Heart as we join Him in eternity. 

Sometimes this comes to us as a disease which gives us forewarning. We can anticipate the slow progression that occurs with an  Alzheimer’s or Parkingson’s diagnosis. On the other hand, we unfortunately can be so focused on arguing with our spouse, friend, sibling, or parent we are unable to see that their (perceived) unreasonableness is caused by dementia or cognitive decline. Many other examples could be given. Regardless of the differing causes of the mental state, the common factor is that it changes our relationship with them. It calls us to a true other-centeredness, a purified love of them. 

It is important, then, to acknowledge and accept these forces that come upon the relationship. By so doing, you can embrace your loved one rather than battle with them. 

Unfortunately, we tend to do the latter. Recognizing their decline… 

• brings fear of “what’s going to happen to me when…?”
• brings dysfunctional loyalty, agreeing with and supporting their claims that others are acting against them as they resist accepting their own decline
• for the elderly, it brings fear of the reality that if their spouse or friend is declining, “I” too will be soon

…so we pretend to not see it. We resist accepting that our world as we know it is changing. Yet eventually the situation comes to its inevitable conclusion; they have finally been freed by death to eternal life. The months and years of our self-protection, our battle within to try to prevent life from changing, it all comes to a crashing end. Our mourning is more than the loss of our loved one. It is the loss of the future we assumed we would have with them. 

In contrast, by accepting the reality of the situation from its beginning, we avoid the unnecessary battles within ourselves: battling our own will as we try to control the situation, denying the reality of it rather than accepting help, etc.

The mourning has already begun

For these reasons, the time to start mourning is now, upon hearing the diagnosis or noticing their cognitive decline. That doesn’t mean you should become a pessimist. Rather the opposite: in prayer, open your heart to God and share your fears and confusion. Mourn the change in relationship as its change progresses. Doing so enables you to love them with a pure heart, having given to God your concerns for your own needs in this situation. You will be able to find joy in them just as they are, not as they used to be. 

There is another important reason for proactively addressing these changes when first realized. Neuroscience has found that in relationships, our brain literally forms a “we”. When the relational dynamic changes, that “we” is shaken up. It becomes unstable and causes unrest. This is because the brain literally encodes the bond that we created with our loved ones as ‘we’ not a ‘you and me’. It is a ‘we’ of overlapping experience. When the loved one is no longer with us, we experience it as a part of ‘us’ missing. At the very neural and coded level, our representation of the ‘we’ has a hole in it and not just in a metaphorical way. This is analogous to a phantom limb experienced when people who have had an arm or leg amputated yet people still feel sensations. As we grapple with our loved one suffering mental and physical decline, we experience sensations in the brain that are related to peripheral nerves. We continue to expect to have both parts of ‘we’ as we function in the world, yet seeing their suffering alerts us to this changing. There are other extensive changes in the grieving brain that are physiological. When the person is gone completely, such as in a divorce or a death, the brain continues to look for “we”. An increase in stress hormones, dopamine and oxytocin are trying to motivate us to find ‘them’ again. The brain updates and changes. This is a mechanical process that takes time. Mourning now helps us to change our expectations of them and our brain’s pattern of “we”. 

Grief also changes the brain in the form of learning. We learn from love and loss. Spouses must figure out “how do I live in the world now? What does it mean for me to be a widow/widower?” Those left behind are learning to be in the world as a person who carries their loved one’s absence. At another level there are habits to change. That feeling we have to do something for our loved one, care for them, prepare for them… we don’t do it anymore. So, the mind must develop new habits as well as predictions of what the future holds. It is difficult because our minds synchronize with those with whom we spend the most time. 

Journeying together

As you walk this part of their journey with them, bickering will dissipate and be replaced by love if you begin to mourn the changes now. After all, your body and mind are already experiencing the change. Hearts enter into a closeness not experienced in any other way except suffering together. Important conversations will take place. You will have opportunities to express your heart, to say those things you’ve always wanted to say. When that day comes and God calls them home, they bring these eternal bonds of love into Heaven with them. In the meantime, embrace God who already is embracing you as the three of you journey together.

P.S. If you are planning end-of-life arrangements, this Vatican statement on the need for bodily burial in consecrated grounds may be helpful https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2016/10/25/161025c.html

(Images: Couple kissing by Gustavo Fring from Pexels; old man by Andreas Bohnenstengel public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)