Who’s afraid of growing old?
I am.
My 87-year-old mom Sonia Mayor, who turned 87 last Friday, Jan. 9, told me coyly she wasn’t really looking forward to her birthday because, “tumatanda na ako.”
Still, despite some of the health challenges of a typical octogenarian, my mother does not look and act like she’s in her eighties. She shops in Victoria’s Secret, for one, whenever she’s in the United States. She also uses Mac dual pressed powder every day.
So what are Sonia’s secrets to her youthful looks and disposition?
“I like happy people, happy places, happy news. Ayokong malungkot,” she began.
She cherishes happy memories, too.
“I remember the happy homecomings I had during Christmases when I was in high school and I was going home to Bongabon (Oriental Mindoro), my hometown. I would really look forward to seeing my little brothers who would jump all over me when they would see me enter the house.”
Her precious memories are really tied up with Bongabon — where she met my Dad, then a salesman for Procter and Gamble.
“One day, I noticed he would visit Bongabon more frequently for his sales calls and staying longer than he used to,” she recalled.
“And when we would take all four of you (my sisters and I) to visit Inay and Tatay, they would be overjoyed and the townspeople would ogle you,” she reminisced.
She told me that as her four daughters were growing up, “You brought your Dad and I much pride with your grades, and later your career achievements.”
Her greatest joy these days is when her grandchildren “shower me with their love and companionship.”
Mom still loves to shop, catching the Rustan’s yearend sale, and going to town there, so to speak. She lives life like there is no tomorrow but grateful that since the day she was born, she’s had 31,755 tomorrows — and counting!
And yes, she’s also been religiously applying Estée Lauder night cream on her face for decades now.
Pinky’s secrets revealed
Why are we afraid of growing old indeed? For me, it’s no fun defying gravity.
But as former Assumption College president Dr. Pinky Valdes, who is now 82 but looks 62, says, “Growing old is transformative. Stop looking outside. Look inside and develop your heart.”
“And when I say growing older, I’m talking about the age of 40 and up. I’m not talking about 60 years old. You remember the famous story about the caterpillar becoming a butterfly? What actually happens is more or less, when we hit around the age of 40 or more, it begins to switch. The wings are starting to appear, and we’re supposed to be totally free. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen if we’re clinging to being a worm or a caterpillar. If we’re stuck to it, then we don’t get out of it. So here’s what happens.” Neurologically, says Pinky, we fear the ravages of aging.
“Most of us are afraid to get Alzheimer’s, right? Or dementia. Physically, we’re not as strong as we were at 35. Psychologically, things hit us differently.”
Pinky says a lot of the changes of aging are beyond one’s control. “We can do a lot about some of them, but some of it we do not have control of. So we’re looking for an answer, and some people say, well, they do facelifts, and some people buy a sports car, which they’ve never had one before. And some men, unfortunately, look after younger women. And we’re looking for the solution in the wrong place.”
“Actually, Meister Eckhart says, ‘Our soul is as young as the day God created us.’ Unless… we cling to what the dualistic society sees as important — to be pretty, handsome, financially successful, sexy, prestigious, be from the upper crust of society in terms of education and political connections, while being respected by others. And worse — we are held captive by anxiety and extreme tension…and work, work, work. It chains our hands and our feet and our mind, and pathetically, our soul, too. In fact, the soul goes through death…
“It’s not good, it’s not bad.. It’s where we go. And actually, when we do that, we define ourselves by our work, then we chain our hands and our feet. We chain our soul.”
Pinky’s secrets to defying the ravages of time are rooted in her faith. “God has only one will. God’s will is just that you learn how to love. That’s it, that’s all God is asking for. And go home to God, before from whom we came. That’s all God’s asking for. And if you don’t believe me, please read the ‘Prodigal Son’ a 100 times. Whatever happens in your life, use every single circumstance to learn how to love. That’s all God wants us to do.”? Pinky believes that “God’s will is a design.”
“We are born, and then there comes a time when we start shifting. Past 40, we start shifting, and what we have to do is try to become more and more loving. That’s all God is asking us to do. And He designed us in such a way that all the physical stuff will recede so that the heart in us can come out. That’s the main problem that we cannot accept. The bottom line is we don’t like God’s design. God’s will is only one thing. If you do have asthma, use your asthmatic attacks to learn how to love. Your will be done. And your will is, you want me to learn how to love, and it goes with the flow of my body and my soul, because my body will say, ‘Pull back, all of this is not important anymore’.” Maybe before 40, it was necessary.
Pinky says that after 40, one must switch gears. “Those of you who drive, you can’t stay in first gear. You can’t stay in first gear, because if you do, the car falls apart. which is exactly what most of us do. That’s why we’re afraid to grow old. We don’t want to be a burden to other people. We don’t want to lose our mobility. We don’t want to lose our power, the respect other people have for us in our job, especially for men if they were in a very high position and now they’re not there anymore. It’s very, very, very difficult for all of us men or women who have been in a high position. You got to let go because something else is going to take over.”
Pinky points out that Antoine de Saint-Exupery (“The Little Prince”) says we must learn to see with the eyes of the heart. “It is only through the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to eye.”
Pinky says that ultimately, the source of the fountain of youth is love.
“There’s a staying young where your heart is so full of love, it shows on your face. And that’s the kind of youth that’s nice. I mean, if you look at Mother Teresa of Calcutta, if you’re going to talk about beauty, it’s certainly not there. It’s not humanly beautiful. But why did so many people respect her? Because love pours out of her face. You don’t have to be pretty anymore because love is far more beautiful than anything else.” *
(Pinky Valdes’ lecture on how not to fear aging is on YouTube.)
You may e-mail me at [email protected]. Follow me on Instagram @joanneraeramirez.
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