Timing is everything

Longtime readers of my blog know that the most courageous thing I've ever seen was my mother picking up the phone, calling a psychologist she knew, and telling her, "Kevyn, I need to make an appointment.  I have no idea who I am."  

Mom did see Kevyn, talked to her for two hours, heard her simple statement - "Kay, I've listened to you for two hours & I think I know what's wrong;  you know what to do, now do it."  And she did.  

Mom started daring to look at things from the perspective of her own opinions beliefs values.  That was awesome, but not radical.  The radical thing was Mom knowing & accepting her own opinions beliefs values, rather than simply looking to support others'.  

 

For years, I marveled at Mom's ability to do something so bold, so transforming, at such a ripe old age.  A couple years ago, it occurred to me that the oral work she was doing - sharing stories from her younger years - might have influenced her ability to connect deeper into her self, might have helped liberate her from whatever held her back.  

As I read Gene Cohen's, The Mature Mind, it hits me that Mom's age might have been the very thing that finally freed her from previous gotta & must do thinking.  She could have heard Kevyn say the exact same thing just a short time before without it sinking in as it did at 88 or 89.  We can hear something that makes total sense, see it makes total sense, but if we lack the maturity of mind, there's no way it's sinking in & making a difference in what we actually do.

Timing is everything.  And it turns out that most of us think respond act wisely better the older we get!

Gene also brings home that Mom had two major things going for her - she was healthy & she was fit.  Age-related diseases like Parkinson's & dementia - not aging itself - are the key factors behind brain breakdown.  And fitness has a role we never imagined when Mom was alive.  

Doing an online search of "aging brain & exercise," the earliest references I found dated to 2002 - a year after Mom died.  It's from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an abstract on exercise, experience & the aging brain. While admitting that "limited research is available, evidence indicates that physical and mental activity influence the aging process."  

 

Hmmm...  Who was the director from 1988-1993 of the NIH's National Institute on Aging?  Gene David Cohen.  During his tenure, it was the fastest growing division at the NIH.  In 1994, Gene left the NIH to found the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at George Washington University, which he headed until his untimely death in 2006. 

 
Gene's findings indicated that the more we keep our mind active & engaged, the more it stays active, even increases in its capacity & capabilities.  To underscore that point, he an award-winning series of Public Service Announcements with George Burns!

Mom did at least one crossword puzzle very day.  She never listened to the talk radio or television shows that many of her contemporaries had on all day - she referred to them as "dreck."  Mom was a devoted WFLN fan, playing the classical music station from breakfast to bedtime.  When she was in the mood for talk radio, it was NPR.  She felt blessed that her eyesight allowed her to remain a voracious reader.  

Pardon me if I repeat a story I've told before, but it always makes me smile.  One of Mom's slightly younger friends tore into me because Mom didn't have a tape player (she had three) - seems she'd offered to lend Mom some audiotaped sermons & understood Mom to say she couldn't use them.  It shocked the friend to hear Mom religiously read the print versions!  Mom did delight in hearing audiotapes - the contemporary service that John & I attended.  She was surprised at how much she enjoyed them, having always shrugged off the service as "New Church light."

Mom was mentally fit, flexible & nimble.  Physically, she wasn't able to get in the daily walks she took all her life, but still stayed active.  And she kept exercising - five weeks before she was reunited with her O! Best Beloved, Mom was still navigating the steps up to the front door, the six steps between the first floor & her bedroom on the second.  She wasn't as fit as she'd been at 85, but she took care to be as fit as she could be.  

This is all old hat - I've written about it before.  But am only just now finally finishing up Gene's book.  It's pretty amazing to read confirmation of what I've long believed - that Mom changed her perspective as soon as she was able.  It's not that she wouldn't look at things differently when she was a kid of 85, but that she couldn't.  Her mind hadn't matured enough to safely take risks.  

Gene outlines three different types of thinking - relativistic, dualistic & systematic.  For most of her life, Mom was only comfortable with the first.  She drove me nuts that her mind couldn't grasp contradictory views & forget trying to see a bigger picture. After talking with Kevyn, she made quantum leaps in dualistic thinking.  Mastering systemic thinking - that stayed outside her grasp.  (I suspect self-protection played a role, keeping her safe from grappling with multi-generations of complex, convoluted family dynamics.) 

What I'm holding close to me today ~

• Timing is everything.
• There's always enough time  - what's lacking is will.  
• Use the finite time I have to do the wisest thing possible.

Imagine the rock 'em, sock 'em life that's possible by fully living each one!  

“To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best 

day and night 

to make you like
everybody else 

means to 

fight the hardest battle
which any human being 

can fight & never stop fighting.” 

e. e. cummings