At one point in my life, I earned certification from the Atlanta Jewish Board of Education as a teacher of Social Ethics. For all of my efforts, I was awarded a lovely certificate and a not so lovely class of 15-year-old students. Soon, I decided that the best way to grab the attention of boys who would rather be playing baseball, and girls who’d rather be polishing their fingernails, was to
role-play.

For my first lesson, I didn’t need many props---a walking cane, some cotton balls, pebbles, gloves and a pair of reading glasses lightly coated with Vaseline. The student, whom I volunteered to become old in an instant, put cotton in her ears, pebbles in her shoes, the glasses on her nose and the gloves on her hands. Yes, and after all that---she needed the cane.

I instructed another student to play the role of a bank teller, and gave her a form for her “elderly customer” to fill out. I also instructed her to speak softly and rapidly. Rapid is easy for teenagers. Then I asked three other students to get in line behind the “old lady.” One was a man late for work, another was a mother who needed to pick up her children at school, and the third was a fellow on his way to meet his girlfriend. I do not need to describe the rest of the exercise, but the reaction of the class was illuminating.

The conversation went something like this: “Getting old is hard.”  “It doesn’t have to be. My grandparents wear hearing aids and Grandma walks with a cane, but they just took a cruise to Japan and brought me a Samurai Sword.” I don’t know what the sword had to do with the conversation, but sometimes it’s hard to keep kids on track. One girl said, “I’d rather die than get old.” A chorus of “That’s stupid!” followed with glowing personal stories about their grandparents. But then the gadfly said, “Yes, but what if you get really sick when you are old?” Whereupon, I said, “What if you get really sick when you’re young?”

Then I asked, “So, what’s the worst thing about getting old?” Silence was followed by an illuminating comment from the back of the room. “The worst thing about getting old is when people treat you as if you are invisible—like you don’t matter anymore.” And, then the bell rang. Those students are now dealing with their own aging parents, and I often wonder if they remember the lesson.

P.G. Woodhouse said, “There is only one cure for grey hair. A Frenchman invented it. It is called the guillotine.”  I must admit that as I age, I sometimes fight the perception that I am becoming invisible, but then I remember that there is my inner essence and that belongs to me. If people show a glimmer of interest, I may or may not choose to share it with them.

One morning, I was alone, sitting at the top of a mountain, watching the sunrise. I thought, “In this big universe, do I really matter?” Then I heard a loud sneeze. It bounced from mountain to mountain. “Oh, nuts!” I thought, “Moses got a burning bush, and God sent me a sneeze.  Then I spied a hiker, and realized I wasn’t alone on the path.

My friend, Carol, a recorder of oral histories was commissioned to interview residents in nursing home, and then their stories were framed and hung outside of their rooms. The purpose of the exercise was that the elderly should not be pre-judged as “just old folks,” but as people who had made something of value with their lives. It was a brilliant exercise to battle prejudice—which comes from pre-judgment. It reminded everyone who entered a room that, “I’m not who I was, but that doesn’t mean that I am nobody.”

The hard thing about growing old is to accept the stupid remarks that come from the most unwelcome sources. A person is only invisible to those who don’t want to see them.  Margaret Atwood said it best; ”I’m not senile. If I burn down the house it will be on purpose.”

Esther Blumenfeld (“The sky is filled with stars invisible by day.”) Henry Wadsworth Longfello