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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Old Age May Mean Freedom Bell Syndicate. WJTU Features. ink .nmZL fVVvi' -NS l 7 '4 "While we can make ourselves necessary to those we love, we are never old." By KATHLEEN NORRIS THERE is no more reason rea-son to be unhappy as an old woman than as a young one. This sounds ridiculous, ridic-ulous, but it is a poor heart that doesn't discover the truth of it, along the road of the fifties and sixties. Young women are acutely unhappy. So are young men. So are old women and old men, and middle-aged ones of both sexes. It's an unhappy unhap-py world. Too many little things can go wrong. Our lives are too complicated. compli-cated. Nothing is perfect. The new baby arrives yelling himself purple in the face. His mother has a few weeks of complacency, albeit it is a scared and nervous sort of pride, then croup and measles threaten. Just the dear yet exhausting responsibility respon-sibility of him wears her down. She isn't as pretty as she was. No more dances, no more flirting. Didies and sitters give place to bad marks on his school cards and scarlet fever and lost rubbers. Then come girls and night clubs and the car out nights. The bliss of a radiantly happy engagement en-gagement soon clouds over. Weddings Wed-dings cause more mental agonies than almost any other form of social so-cial gathering. Feelings are hurt. Dresses are 'disappointing. Honeymoons Honey-moons are altogether too strange and brief to be much fun. Housekeeping House-keeping has its phases of inexperienced inexperi-enced cooking, troublesome old friends, family criticism. Only one thing is worse, and that's not marrying, not having a house jid husband and babies to worry about. 'Life a Delusion.' Why not face it? Life is a delusion de-lusion at all ages. We have a fight for the bright spots and pray for the serenity of spirit that rises above the pricks and disappointments and carries us into a really happy old age. Yes, here we are back at old age, and I believe it can be the happiest hap-piest time of life. I don't mean resigned, re-signed, or patiently enduring, or downtrodden and saintly and long-suffering. long-suffering. I mean that with good health, something to do, and confidence confi-dence in God's strange and perplexing per-plexing ways, the 50s -can be happier hap-pier than the 40s, and the 60s better than either. Further than that I am not qualified to go at present, but I have no fear of the years to come. Health in age is real health, depending de-pending on a time-seasoned body, restraint in eating, drinking, amusements, amuse-ments, fatigues. Something to do is absolutely essential to good old age. There are one million neglected jobs 1 waiting for old women, and a lot of the old women are idly stagnating stagnat-ing in little warm parlors, playing occasional bridge, eating too much, and suffering from headaches, colds, blues. These are the old women wom-en who have given old age a bad name. They think it is simply dreadful. dread-ful. The independence of age, its freedom, free-dom, its relief from the long years of having to do things she didn't want to do, its right to do the things she does want to do, escape the notice of these narrow little cottonwool cotton-wool useless old ladies. In the 60s one may give up boring dinners; one's acute maternal obligations are over. One's nights can be prefaced pref-aced by good reading and filled with deep sleep. Help with Chores. And for work? Well, I wish I had a dollar for every one of the tired young mothers who talk to me of the difficulty of trying to get some- one to sit with the baby, do an hour's ironing, clean out the vegetable vegeta-ble cooler, sit and chat and finish up that mending basket Scores of elderly women will actually go to see a beloved daughter or niece and lament with her over the lack of intelligent in-telligent household help. They will sit in the young mother's parlor, looking about sadly; "no one to help you with dusting dear." They will tut-tut-tut over the heaped washing, all the while interrupting the household house-hold routine and adding cigarette stubs to the trays. "Nancy can't get anyone," they complain, themselves perfectly fitted fit-ted to step into that little household three times a week and go straight for the dish towel or the clean pillow slips. Three times a week to Nancy, three times a week to George's wife, quiet, unquestioning, cheerfully gos-sipfuL gos-sipfuL what a blessing these idle, well-manicured, 60-year-old hands could be! A blessing not only to Nancy. It is a blessing to oneself to be busy, useful, beloved. It makes an idle Sunday a treat. It warms one's heart with the disproportionate gratitude of the younger crowd. It makes the days fly and all thoughts of age fly with them. While we can make ourselves necessary nec-essary to those we love, we are never old. Wearing what you like, reading, eating, seeing the plays or pictures you like. What more could youth offer you? Youth, with its vagaries, doubts, fears, ignorances, chances, heartaches, offers you much less. If helplessness, Illness, incapability incapabil-ity come upon you, you need new heroism, new philosophy, new faith. But until they do and they may never come! don't cheat yourself your-self out of the deep happiness and security of old age. I J V"1""! The serene years ... ' |