Dear old dad

Reading newspaper obituaries one could be forgiven the unscientific inference that one of the surest guarantors of an old age is to adopt the vocation of church ministry where death in one’s eighties and nineties is almost run of the mill. But dig beneath these numbers and we uncover some interesting questions. What happens to those elderly persons left bereft by the loss of a life mate?

Popular medical advice informs us that loneliness is a huge negative factor in health – worse than smoking fifteen cigarettes a day or obesity.

If your partner dies at eighty and you are programmed to live until ninety or more, how do you spend that potential of ten additional years?

If you are lucky, a new friend may emerge out of the crowd. But this can cause us to step backward into another marsh of confusion and even opposition. Especially if the new friend is younger.

Disturbing reservations may emerge. Is the new object of our old father’s or mother’s affection and companionship after the family estate, thus depriving us of what should rightfully be ours? Is our old Dad (or Mom) making an embarrassing spectacle of themselves? Is the new old age attachment an act of disloyalty towards a deceased life-mate of many decades?

And so on.

These may look like reasonable considerations, but on closer scrutiny they may reveal cultural biases against displays of emotion, sexuality, mutuality and human need on the part of the aged. Ageism may run more deeply than we assume in unexpected quarters.

Does the Bible provide any guidance here? Abraham’s story in the book of Genesis may throw some light on our issue. Do not let the extreme ages frighten you away – this probably discloses the legendary nature of the accounts. But remember, legends are composed and communicated for a reason: they convey messages about human values, duties, and possibilities.

Abraham was 100 and his barren wife 90 when God’s intervention brought about the birth of Isaac. Upon Sarah’s death at age 127, Abraham takes another wife, Keturah, who bears him six sons. Abraham dies at age 195.

But in all that long intervening period there is no suggestion that Isaac or his progeny condemn Abraham with hostility for his relationship with Keturah, or excoriate Keturah for her relationship with him.

Though Abraham’s later years have been enriched with the fecundity of six additional sons, the primacy of Isaac is not called into question.

Perhaps gratitude should typically be the appropriate response to dear old dad’s (or mom’s) discovery of a new friend to lighten and deepen the latter years.