Where Are Our Role Models?

It's Hard to Find Examples When You're on the Cutting Edge

Photo by Bahram Bayat on Unsplash

This blessing of a longer lifespan is relatively new. Three of my four grandparents, for example, died before they were 60. In that generation, living to be 70 was a significant achievement. In our generation, of course, with life expectancy averaging in the upper 70s, plenty of us can expect to be still tooling around in our 80s and 90s.

            Which is to say, when we look for role models for graceful and joyous aging, we may not find any likely candidates in our own family tree. We live on the cutting edge of a change in how our society ages. We either need to model ourselves after those few remarkable individuals who are ahead of the curve, or we do what we have always done and make it up as we go along.

            For my part, I would like to recommend Norm as my first choice role model for latter-day living. Norm, who passed away last year at age 93, knew how to do it right!

Norm, a financial services professional who never quite retired,  was 82 when his wife died. Following Jewish practice, he began attending a daily worship service each morning to say a prayer of mourning for her. When the traditional 11-month mourning period ended, Norm kept attending because the regular service attendees had become steadfast friends. He went to plays and concerts he and his wife had attended with other couples. He worked out at the gym three days per week. Then he joined the Encore Chorale, a performing group organized at a local senior center. Norm loved to sing. In his younger days he had sung in operas and on Broadway, but he had given it up because he saw little prospect of a stable income, and he wanted to raise a family.

It was in the Encore Chorale that he met Joyce, who also loved to sing. Joyce was attracted to Norm’s positive attitude, as well as his distinctive bass voice. After performing and rehearsing together for two years, she made the first move, asking him to lunch. “I’m glad you approached me,” he said. He’d had his eye on her but lacked the nerve to ask. From that day on, they were an item. “He was tired of being lonely, and so was I,” Joyce says.

Joyce was considerably younger – at only 68, a good 16 years younger than Norm. “I was conscious of the age difference,” she says. “But his other qualities outweighed it.”

For nine years they were companions at symphony concerts, plays, movies, art museums, restaurants, and classes at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. They took bus trips to New York to see Broadway plays. They performed with the Encore Chorale on a boat cruise from Budapest to Prague. They attended Orioles baseball games and visited each other’s families on holidays and celebrations. He was always on the lookout for new things to do, cutting articles from the newspaper and showing them to Joyce – who meanwhile had her own set of newspaper clippings.  

“Everything was so easy with him,” Joyce recalls. “His motto was always, ‘Think positive.’ It stood him in good stead.”

Norm remained active to the end, only making accommodations reluctantly in his last year as he fought with lymphoma. His positive outlook and zest for living carried him through 93 well-lived years.

I want to be like Norm when I grow up.

Other Role Models

Looking for other role models? Photographer Laura Page set out to document elders leading extraordinary lives during the pandemic, in defiance of ageist stereotypes. Her photo-essay for BBC News includes:

·         A retired teacher who has turned her garden into an art gallery

·         An 83-year-old Instagram model

·         An 83-year-old inventor who salvages raw materials from trash dumps

·         A woman who has achieved her childhood dream of being a professional ballet dancer, at age 82

·         A woman who started her dressmaking career at 17 and, at 85, is still going strong

·         A doctor who, at 81, teaches up to six yoga classes weekly

·         An 83-year-old man who doesn’t let cerebral palsy keep him from painting or writing poetry.

·         An 83-year-old surfer who also invented a wetsuit for braving cold Atlantic waters

·         A woman who danced at the London Olympics opening ceremony in 2012 – at age 80.

Thanks to reader Faith Pentland for sharing the article.

And finally, check out the incredible true story of a man who was told at 65 that he had six months to live, moved to Portugal to spend his final days, and when death didn’t come as promised, launched new careers as a banker, horse breeder, and wine maker. He lived to be 105.

Your Turn

Do you have any role models of gracious, joyful aging? Please share with the rest of us.