Toward Commitment

by Diane Rehm

  Dialogue on Aging

  JOHN: Of the many demands made upon a marriage and any committed relationship, I think, at seventy-one, that aging is one of the trickiest, particularly because for such a long time it is subtle, even imperceptible. We don't like to acknowledge it, and when we do, we try to make light of it. But it does entail increasing demands upon a relationship, calling for a special patience and a sense of humor.

  DIANE: So what has happened to you and me in this process of aging? When you and I were married, I was twenty-three, and now I'm sixty-five and you're seventy-one. What kinds of changes have we seen in each other? I know that I've seen my pace at the office slow down a little, even as I try to keep doing everything I have to do. I also realize that when I come home, I feel more exhausted than I used to feel, and I'm sure that shows in my face and body. I wonder how that makes you feel, not only about me but about yourself?

  JOHN: Aging does take its toll upon your lovely body and your lovely face. Of necessity, they don't have the youthfulness they did when you were twenty-five. I would still call you beautiful, but it's a beauty of a somewhat different kind now, because your face does have lines and your body, though lean, is not as supple as it once was. But I have shifted to a fuller appreciation of your person and do not dwell quite so much on the physical aspects, which were important to me and still remain important to me. As for myself, in my twenties and thirties I was a fairly strong man. I had lots of muscle, having worked in a quarry, and I could carry heavy weights. Today I'm unwilling to carry a case of wine into the house, for fear it might do something to my back, so when I take the wine bottles out of the car, I do it in stages, and sometimes you help me. Well, that's a blow to my male vanity, though I don't like to admit it. When we were at the farm recently, I wanted to move a heavy object out of the basement to be put up for auction. The auctioneer, our longtime friend, Gerry Pennay, was with me and suggested we carry the object out of the basement together. I was about to say yes, because that was my macho self speaking. And then I said to myself, “Oh, you might do something really harmful to your back, just say no.” So I said no, leaving him to get outside help. But it was difficult to do.

  DIANE: It's difficult to see you say no to such things. I recognize how important they've been to your ego. As I said many times, when I first laid eyes on you, you looked like a football player, with strong shoulders, a broad back, and narrow waist and hips. Now, through the years, you've become much slimmer, and you've lost that dimension in your shoulders. But you know what? I see it as a sweet process of change. I see what's happened in your face as a sweetening and softening rather than simply aging. I see you becoming more mellow, not only in your heart but in your body. And that's a transformation I'm quite comfortable with. As for myself, I rarely wear clothes that don't have sleeves, because I don't like my arms to show. I realize my waist is not as narrow as it used to be. And I also realize that my face has lines in it that I never used to see. You know, I used to worry about that and say to myself, “Is Scoop not going to love me anymore because I'm not as pretty as I once was?” And I finally reached the point of thinking, you know, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that we continue to move through life together, understanding that these kinds of changes are inevitable and accepting them.

  JOHN: That's the key. Not only to understand but to accept. I think it would be wrong for me to say it's always easy. It isn't. And I would also emphasize that we're talking about our aging process at a time when our complaints are really quite minor. Whereas five or ten years from now, that may not be the case, and they could be more serious. But yes, it does require an attitudinal change—perhaps an enlargement of love and affection. It occurs to me that at this time of what I would call incipient aging, I still hold to the illusion that our ailments have plateaued, and that they are what they are and won't get more severe. Of course, this is illusory, because even while we think we're on a plateau, our body is in constant decline. The process is inexorable. And I have to ask myself, in all honesty, whether five or ten years from now, assuming we're both here, I will have the same patience, the same sympathy. After all, some of these ailments can be awkward, difficult, even embarrassing.

  DIANE: There's another important issue we haven't touched on, and that's what's going on in the world right now. The very discussion of aging makes me feel uncomfortable, in this fall of 2001, with anthrax about us, with the destruction of the World Trade Center just behind us. The world has changed so much that even to think about the aging process is to be optimistic. I don't know whether we're going to be able to live out our lives. I pray that we will. My faith is that we will. And yet at the same time I fear for the whole world, so how I age becomes a minimal concern.

  JOHN: I don't share your pessimism. I think five or ten years from now our lifestyle will unquestionably have changed. There'll be greater security measures, both national and international. But my hunch is that most of us will proceed without continuing calamities. I must say I have enormous admiration and respect for ailing friends. For example, a couple with whom we had dinner recently are dealing with ailments far more severe than ours, and they maintain their spirit. I think of another couple, closer to death, who maintain the same spirit of love and affection. That has to be one of the great tests of the durability of a relationship, as it moves toward the end. Can love endure under different circumstances from those it began with? I hope I'm up to that.

  DIANE: What do you mean, you hope you're up to that?

  JOHN: I hope that I can have the generosity of spirit not only to accept but to continue to support you, Diane, if your physical problems become serious and the day-to-day routine becomes grubby.

  DIANE: Grubby?

  JOHN: Yes.

  DIANE: Do you have doubts about that, in yourself?

  JOHN: Yes, I have doubts. But I think of the work I'm doing at the hospice. Watching other people die, as you necessarily do at a hospice, and, at the same time, aware of the love and care that's given to them—that has encouraged me to believe that I can do the same.

  DIANE: I agree that caring for a loved one as he or she gets older and loses faculties is a frightening proposition. Thank God you and I haven't come anywhere near that point. We're both still active and enjoying every aspect of life. If there's a fear about aging, I think you've put your finger on it. I think watching someone you love deeply and have loved deeply for many years—watching that person decline has got to be the hardest aspect of keeping that commitment in the heart.

  JOHN: I think I'm most afraid of the situation, Diane, in which one of us would be reasonably healthy and the other, without a life-threatening illness, would be considerably less healthy. So there would be a clear disparity in well-being. It might be better if we both went down this road together, with our ailments being more or less equal.

  DIANE: At the same time, you have to remember that commitment, in this sense, does mean that if one goes down first, the other will care for the ailing partner and undertake the responsibilities that the ailing one can no longer deal with.

  JOHN: I think I will recognize the formal obligation and do my best to discharge it. The question I'm raising is whether, deep down in the heart of me, I will be able to maintain, with the same force as in the past, the affection, the love, the respect. That's a test that I may have to face at some point, and I hope I can succeed.

  DIANE: Somehow, watching you over all these years, I'm less doubtful than you about your ability and commitment. Actually, listening to your reports regarding hospice work over the past few months, I've been amazed at how caring your manner has been as you've seen people die. I watched my mother decline, and my father die suddenly, but that was the closest I ever came to experiencing firsthand someone's death. Her care was provided by doctors and nurses, so my willingness to carry out the sad chores occasioned by her decline was never tested. I promise you—and myself—that if a time comes when I am called on to care for you, I will do so, to the very best of my ability, w
ith love and kindness.

  JOHN: And I make the same promise to you.

  Grandparenting

  John

  Diane and I have three grandchildren: Alex, the sixteen-year-old son of Nancy and David; Benjamin, the three-year-old son of Jennie and Russell; and their new baby, Sarah. We have been grandparents for only four years, but already we've begun to savor the special joys of grandparenting. We've also come to understand and accept its proper limitations.

  First, I find that I can reach out to my grandchildren with a certain freedom. We come together with few expectations and even fewer obligations. We're simply who we are, and we accept each other on that basis. I find this gives our relationship a liberating quality.

  Second, I can afford to be less than responsible in small but delightful ways. As a grandfather, I seem to have acquired a license to spoil my grandchildren as I wish. Thus I can alter a diet, interrupt a schedule, or indulge a whim. I get vicarious pleasure from these infractions, recalling my own delight in upsetting a parental regime. I thrive on these episodes of minor anarchy.

  Third, through grandparenting I see myself in an enlivening light. Benjamin at three or Alex at sixteen inevitably calls up images of myself as a baby or an adolescent boy. These images reinforce my conviction that chronological time is largely irrelevant to my inner sense of time. When I'm with them, I'm three or sixteen or somewhere in between. It's in this sense that grandparenting helps keep me young.

  At the same time, Diane and I have imposed certain limitations upon our grandparenting. If we're asked, we will offer advice concerning our grandchildren's upbringing; otherwise we remain on the sidelines, unless the issue seems particularly important. Given the ignorance with which we raised Jennie and David, we are hesitant to offer opinions.

  We've also agreed to keep overnight visits to our children's homes to no more than two or three days. Even with the best of intentions on the part of all concerned, the presence of grandparents inevitably puts an additional strain on the parents. These strains are apt to be compounded since, in each case, both of the parents are at work outside the house. It is up to the parents, therefore, to set the date of arrival—and of departure.

  Has our marriage been enhanced by the presence of these grandchildren in our lives? I think so, because grandparenting has proven to be a joint experience for us. Together we share activities with our grandchildren, such as playing, talking, shopping, and eating. As a couple, we rejoice in their startling growth, take pride in their accomplishments, and express gratitude for their lives. I think Diane and I have found that in reaching out to our grandchildren, we also reach out to each other in new and unexpected ways.

  I would cite silliness as an example. Normally Diane and I are fairly serious people, but we do engage in a certain amount of playfulness. Now, however, we are allowed by their parents, and indeed encouraged by our grandchildren, to be silly with them. In turn, I believe that these days Diane and I are more apt to be silly with each other. Something of their youth has happily rubbed off on us.

  Diane

  Everything I write now is under the shadow of September 11, 2001. I am particularly worried for the future of my grandchildren, those here among us now and those to come. I'm worried about the kind of world they will experience, or—my most drastic worry—whether the world will actually continue to exist. My anxiety knows no bounds.

  These young people, whether they are sixteen, three, or yet to be born, will live an extraordinarily different life from that of their parents or grandparents. I lived through World War II, the war in Korea, and the U.S. operation in Vietnam, and never felt that my personal security was threatened by a foreign entity, with one exception: during the Cuban missile crisis, when I feared the United States might be drawn into a full-scale nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Once the drama of those few weeks had passed, I had faith that our government would protect and defend us and that we were a mighty nation equipped with the necessary intelligence and armaments to keep our country safe.

  Now, in the aftermath of September 11, I realize that those days of security belong to a different era in a different century. The words “peaceful” and “tranquil,” I fear, will not be ones historians use to describe America early in the twenty-first century.

  Putting those gloomy thoughts aside, I can confirm that what they say about a grandparent's relationship with an infant grandchild is absolutely true: you fall in love. From the first moment I laid eyes on Benjamin, that beautiful boy, I knew my life was changed. Far from concerns about the responsibilities of parenthood, I completely adored and accepted this child, as both a physical and spiritual being. I became magically entranced by his eyes, his mouth, his nose, his fingers and toes. Holding him in my arms felt like an act of holiness. To watch his responses, to hear Jennie and Russell interpret his needs based on his tiniest gestures was a marvel. As he has grown now to the age of three, I realize what a solid foundation of security he has been given by his parents, and how fortunate a child he is for that gift.

  Our son, David, married his lovely wife, Nancy, after she had had a son by a prior marriage. John and I met Alex when he was twelve, just entering adolescence, appropriately questioning everything that was happening around him, especially, perhaps, this new set of grandparents he had suddenly acquired.

  The learning process for me has been slower with Alex, now sixteen, a brilliant young man who possesses charm, good looks, and the ability to articulate complex ideas. I remember David and Jennie at that age, both wanting their space—especially from me—and making no bones about it. Alex has been more generous, allowing me to become part of his life with kindness and gentleness. He's willing to help me in the kitchen, for example, a task he performs happily and well. We talk about the radio business and what it's like to do a daily broadcast. He's interested in—and good at—computers, and we share information about the Internet. Right now he wants to learn about Japanese art, so John has had an opportunity to share his knowledge of the Japanese works in the Freer Gallery. All these instances provide opportunities for growth in the relationship between Alex and his new set of grandparents.

  Our experiences with Alex are different from those we've had with Benjamin and Sarah, yet we regard them all as our grandchildren. Since we've come into each relationship from different directions, I suspect we'll share our lives with them in different ways. When you come into a twelve-year-old's life, he is already his own person. When you're introduced to a child from birth, there's more of an opportunity to play a role in the formation of his ideas and his outlook. Having said that, I know that we'll do everything we can to support Alex as he finishes high school and embarks on a new academic experience at the college level. I have a sense that our relationship with each other will grow and change every bit as much as our relationship with Benjamin and Sarah will be transformed through their growing years.

  Grandparenting is a privilege I was afraid I would never live to experience. Having come this far, I'm now allowing myself to be excited about how my life will be intertwined with the lives of these young people, and the extent to which I can contribute to their moral and spiritual growth.

  Dialogue on Grandparenting

  JOHN: September 11 has certainly changed our lives in many ways, including my attitude toward my grandchildren. Before September 11, I could say that having them was a totally joyous experience, in the full confidence that they would have a good opportunity to lead long and satisfying lives. Today, that assumption seems naive and perhaps even inaccurate. Who can know the environment in which they will be living five or ten years from now? The joy of grandparenting is now offset by a new sobriety and concern, and, beyond that, fear.

  DIANE: I feel anxiety moving through me sharply as we conduct this dialogue on grandparenting. I feel helpless. I feel as though no matter how I love and support each of these children, it's all out of my hands and control. At the same time, I have to be positive and supportive. I realize that my anxieties can't be allowed to ove
rshadow what we experience with these children, or else they too will feel nothing but fear, and I certainly don't want that to happen. At the same time, I don't know how to react anymore. I'm fearful.

  JOHN: The fear is eminently understandable and sane. But yes, I think it's terribly important that we treat these grandchildren as we would have before September 11, that is, giving them love and encouragement and trying in small ways— because grandparents can't do a great deal—to strengthen the wholesome values we know they're acquiring from their parents.

  DIANE: Moving away from all that fear and anxiety, how does being a grandparent seem to you different from being a parent?

  JOHN: As a parent, I had and still have an immediate responsibility toward our children. They're mature adults now, but in small ways I still exercise that parental responsibility. In the case of our grandchildren, as I said in my essay, there is a delicious irresponsibility, not to be carried too far, to be sure, but a freedom to play with them, to cavort with them—and to be serious with them. Also, although recognizing that the influence cannot be as great as that of their parents, trying to remain a part of their moral and spiritual life, as well as just having good fun.

  DIANE: I ask myself to what extent we should be involved in disciplining our grandchildren. There are times when I feel that I have a right to speak out and say something about a particular behavior that doesn't please me. And I do say things to each of them. I try to say them gently, and I say them in a different way from the way I said such things to our own children. What about you?

  JOHN: Well, I think there is a kind of disciplining that can be properly and wisely exercised by grandparents. But I must say, for me the key word is caution. First of all, I don't think we can have that much influence on our grandchildren, because they're in a daily environment of which we're not a part. Beyond that, in consideration of, and respect for, the role the parents play in the lives of their children, I think the discipline must be marginal, peripheral if you will. It may be undertaken from time to time, to be sure, but always, if possible, with deference, either explicit or implicit, to the parents. Ultimately, of course, the parents are in charge.