Contemplating Aging: Embracing Life and Letting Go

I just tried to take my nightly walk through the nursing home, and it happened that one of my friends, age 101, was awake to take her pain medication, so I had a chance to talk to her for a few minutes. 

She has been falling frequently, and the last time, a couple of weeks ago, she broke her hip, for which she had surgery. She’s in pain and has lost the will to live, and the caregivers are trying to motivate her to get off the bed and make the process of healing faster, which she refuses. 

My personal belief is when old people want to leave this material world, they should be allowed the option of leaving naturally, rather than trying to keep them here on this Earth for a few more days, weeks, or months, consequently prolonging their suffering. 

RELATED: Do Baha’is Believe in Life After Death?

I know that families want to keep their loved ones with them as long as possible, but they are not doing it for the sake of the sufferer, and they may think prolonging the life of the sufferer is an act of love or kindness. However, they are not under the skin of the sufferer, and they are not the ones who experience the intolerable pain, which requires being medicated, and all they can do is sleep. 

Since I’ve been here in the nursing home, I’ve come to see that the act of artificially prolonging the life of a loved one is, unfortunately, sometimes, a selfish act. I know that it is often generated out of love and difficulty in tolerating the loss of the loved one — all good intentions, but not with good outcomes. This is one of our human shortcomings, I think, the failure to accept death as desirable.

It is not easy to get old. One witnesses the sufferings and loss of too many friends; too many of one’s friends die. Even though most people, if not all people, know that death is a freedom from pain and suffering and we can celebrate the freedom of our loved ones, missing so many of them becomes sometimes very difficult.

If we have faith, we can learn that death is a natural, normal part of life for older people — not a terrible tragedy, but a blessed release from the pain and problems of the physical realm. Abdu’l-Baha, in a letter to someone mourning the deaths of a husband and a sister, put it this way:

I beg of God that He will assist thee to comprehend the mysteries that lie at the heart of creation, and will draw away the veil from before thine eyes … that the well-guarded secret may be disclosed unto thee, and the hidden mystery be revealed as clear as the sun at noonday; that He will aid thy sister and thy husband to enter the Kingdom of God, and will heal thee of every ill, whether physical or spiritual, that assaileth one in this life.

I realize, though, that I want to keep my loved ones here on this plane of existence myself! Tomorrow, one of my angels is having a bone marrow transplant, so while walking and saying my nightly prayers, I repeated the brief Baha’i prayer called “the remover of difficulties” for her. Revealed by the Bab, the prayer simply says: “Is there any remover of difficulties save God? Say: Praised be God! He is God! All are His servants, and all abide by His bidding!” 

I pray that God, in His infinite mercy and loving-kindness, will help this procedure be successful. But the remover of difficulties prayer also tells me that we all abide by God’s bidding — and that His wisdom far exceeds mine or anyone else’s. So, I guess I’ll just pray that God’s will should be done. At least that way, I know my prayer has an excellent chance of success!

Speaking of difficulties, yesterday, my blood was both low and high at different times, and I had to take medications for both conditions. It seems that my BP cannot make up its mind, just like me sometimes. Oh, well, I know, one day, one of them will give way to the other, low and high will collide, and both will then leave me alone completely since they cannot follow me to the next world. 

RELATED: The Hidden Nature of Life After Death

Isn’t it wonderful when I, not they, become the master! Except, in the next world, my guess is no one is the master, only the messengers of God — those universal teachers and their devoted followers will be the masters. Well, that is a good thing, isn’t it? We, or at least our physical entities, will be left behind here on Earth and won’t have to make any more tedious decisions about what to eat, what to wear, or what to worry about. It will no longer matter whether our decisions will work or not. Instead, God’s Will will certainly be done, as Baha’u’llah promised: 

Know thou for a certainty that the Will of God is not limited by the standards of the people, and God doth not tread in their ways. Rather is it incumbent upon everyone to firmly adhere to God’s straight Path. … Verily He is to be praised in His acts and to be obeyed in His behests. He hath no associate in His judgment nor any helper in His sovereignty. He doeth whatsoever He willeth and ordaineth whatsoever He pleaseth. Know thou moreover that all else besides Him have been created through the potency of a word from His presence, while of themselves they have no motion nor stillness, except at His bidding and by His leave.

Praised be God! I am so blessed!