Chapter 2: Living Life as a Senior

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Comfort Keepers for serving as the sponsor of this series.
Recently, I had corneal transplant surgery that required me to lay flat on my back and not move my head for five days. This allowed endless time to memorize the texture of my ceiling, decide on new paint schemes for my walls, where to get new pillows as well as stressing about what color they should be, along with additional equivalent major decisions.
After that intellectual exercise, I started to think about gratitude and how deeply thankful I was to the person that signed the back of their driver’s license and became a donor. How would they feel if they knew their cornea donation enabled someone to see the colors of the world more vibrantly? What were they thinking when they signed the back of their card at the DMV? How happy would their surviving family be if they knew a part of that person was continuing to live and give the gift of sight? Would it make them proud? I felt grateful to my surgeon who performed this amazing surgery who took the time to squeeze my hand during and reassured me with the words “you are doing great.”
I was also grateful for my incredible friends who came over and read to me, watched junky reality shows with me, brought me flowers and made me laugh. They cooked meals, called repeatedly, gave special personal gifts and remembered to hug me during the dark times. I became grateful for my husband’s care. He put his personal life on hold for a week and cooked, cleaned, kept me company and nurtured me, all while administering many eye drops at the required times.
Gratitude is a powerful thing at any stage of life but especially as we get older and encounter physical challenges. Why don’t we spend more time in that zip code? Research shows that gratitude helps people have more energy, be more optimistic and engage more socially. It deepens our connection to friends and our spouse. Those relationships become even more important in our senior years. So why don’t we practice gratitude more? Largely because being critical is so much easier. Learned habits and responses allow us to travel toward that well-worn groove in our brain that automatically jumps to “I don’t have enough money in retirement” or “I wish I could travel more.”
When my husband and I get into one of our “poor me” pity parties I will frequently say to him that it is time to play ‘The Gratitude Game.’
Can’t you just hear the game show music playing? Can you hear my husband groan and say, “Oh no, not the gratitude game again?” Sometimes I’ll let him off easy and he only needs to think of three things to be grateful for but other times it’s five. The amazing part is not the number but instead the mental transition from complaints to gratitude. And the exercise works for both of us.
Gratitude also inspires us to perform kind acts for others. When we feel grateful it prompts people to want to pay the benefactors back but also to “pay it forward.”
Personal words of gratitude while in contact with the other person either verbally or visually have the most powerful impact.
Some thoughts to consider: Last week, what negative event happened to you which on closer consideration could be converted to an act of gratitude? Yes, you got rear-ended while driving. What if you acknowledged that person that stopped to ensure your wellbeing? Can you remember when someone acknowledged you and how good it felt?
My husband retired from a 38-year surgical career. Every day when leaving the operating room he said, “Thank you for your help.” Every day! At his retirement party, all the nurses, without exception, noted how much that meant to them.
We never know the impact of some of our smallest acts. Now I’m going to write a gratitude letter to my donor’s family. Oh, and I am so grateful to all of you for reading this!