Story by Mary Morrell, Correspondent
When sharing her wisdom and experience with elders, Catherine M. Keevey often offers the insight of Pulizter Prize-winning novelist Edith Wharton, who stressed that in spite of illness and sorrow, a long, meaningful life is possible “if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things and happy in small ways.”
This sense of possibility was a focus of Keevey’s recent presentation, “A Lenten Journey to Elderhood,” held Feb. 21 in St. Ann Parish, Lawrenceville. The presentation reviewed the various stages of life as a Lenten journey, and emphasized sustaining factors along the road to Easter, especially the contemplative dimension of life.
Keevey, a St. Ann parishioner, is a registered nurse with broad experience in home health care and hospice who, for the past 20 years, has served as an elder care consultant for the National Religious Retirement Organization and speaker at national organizations for men and women in the area of eldercare planning and the holistic approach to aging.
Keevey shared some of her wisdom on aging with The Monitor:
Q: Why do you use the term elderhood instead of the typical terms – senior or maturing adult?
A: Elder is the term that the National Religious Retirement Office prefers us to use in discussing issues of aging and changing the view of aging. It is seen as a more positive term than senior, or aging and old age, which is static. The term elderhood, like adulthood, is something that you move into, grow into. It is a process, a stage of life.
Q: How does Lent relate to the journey of elderhood?
A: Lent provides a way of looking at the journey to wholeness in the resurrected Christ, a way of looking at transition and what supports us. How do we deal with loss? Lent is a time to see our loss against the loss experienced by Jesus as he experienced multiple dyings on his way to the Cross.
Q: What are some of the supporting practices you recommend for the journey into elderhood?
A: There is a holistic approach to wellness. How we find balance
in life at this time is critical. For many, it has not been a balanced life. Obligations of family, work, etc., have been the heavy hitters. Now is the time to allow the spiritual life to be developed further or in new ways so that the three-legged stool of prayer, work and play are more integrated.
I stress the role of contemplation as a practice to develop. It is my sense that this time of allowing us to be in quiet and just allow God to speak to us through Scripture, nature, spiritual reading or whatever is present to us … is God’s invitation for us to tune in and be attentive to all around us as reflecting God. If we are able to see all of life as part of our journey to God, then how we care for the body, how we deal with diminishment and the changes and transitions of this time of life, are opportunities to live in the moment and find new ways to approach old issues.
Q: How has your background, spiritual or professional, inspired your interest in this topic?
A: My family, both when I was a child and later in life, encour aged ways of finding meaning through service to others. I watched my parents develop a deep acceptance of life at all its stages, and they always were open to new ways of thinking and understanding their faith.
Nursing, as I was taught, was a vocation. It was the care of the whole person, and my work as a visiting nurse and later work with hospice taught me that each moment is not only precious, but is a time for relationships to be deepened or healed, so that we can move on to the next step in our journey.