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Compassion never leaves us

8/10/2019

Old women have compassion for those suffering. Is that a secret? Probably not. I don’t want to say that feelings are more intense as we get older, but they come with a history. When I see the children suffering at our border or in Mississippi I think of my teaching days when a little girl cried missing her mom on the first day of kindergarten, or when a six year old screamed and hid under a table when he heard thunder. The good news is compassion doesn’t leave us as we get older. At least while we are ‘in our right mind.’ Maybe compassion is a good indicator of that.

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I am a 78 year old white, educated, privileged woman, in excellent health, with a wonderful family. I go to church and travel by myself to Italy and Scotland. That’s my public vita, my public persona. But that’s not all who I am. I have secrets, secrets of an old woman. So let me say some more.
     I’m old. Not in the usual physical ways of a person age 78, but I’m old in years, and that very fact guides the sense of meaning that I feel and experience in my life. Put succinctly, more and more my age is becoming the filter through which I lead my life.
     I’ve had a rich life, with caring parents, a loving husband of 54 years, two wonderful children, and four amazing grandchildren. My teaching career was rewarding; I published six books for teachers describing my experiences as a kindergarten and first grade teacher. When I retired I earned a divinity degree and became the spiritual care counselor for a local hospice.
    I ask myself if now I am really retired. Well, yes and no. Yes, in that I have more free and unscheduled time to satisfy my longing for silence, solitude and simplicity, which I blog about in this blog-- www.acottagebythesea.net, and more time to attend to my spiritual life, which I blog about in www.aprayerdiary.net. I have more time to spend with family and friends, help at church, read for pleasure, write, and travel,. My old woman secret is that I am still searching for meaning and the search is intense and life supporting.

Compassion never leaves us

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