The Graceful Art of Getting Older

The way we age reveals our true character in ways we rarely consider until faced with our own mortality or witnessing the final chapters of those we love. Kerry and Chrissy dive into a profoundly human conversation about the stark difference between facing our advancing years with dignity versus resentment. What makes this conversation so powerful is the revelation that how we approach aging doesn't just affect us—it profoundly shapes how our loved ones will remember our entire lives. A parent who faces death with grace can actually strengthen positive memories and heal past wounds, while bitterness in final years risks overshadowing decades of good relationships. 

Whether you're witnessing parents age, caring for elderly loved ones, or contemplating your own approach to life's final chapters, this episode offers profound insight into one of life's most universal yet rarely discussed challenges. How will you choose to age? And what final impression will you leave with those who love you most?

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Happy Birthday Jim
• 3:10 What Does Aging With Grace Mean?
• 5:27 Two Types of Aging: Selfless vs Selfish
• 10:05 Finding Joy in New Chapters
• 14:43 Parental Examples of Dignified Endings
• 19:22 How Final Days Shape Family Memories
• 22:30 Preparing for Aging: Practical Considerations

Transcript

DJ Nick: 0:07

Welcome to the Dysfunction Junkies podcast. We may not have seen it all, but we've seen enough. And now here are your hosts, chrissy and Kerry.

Kerry: 0:22

Welcome back, junkies. I'm Kerry

Chrisy: 0:23

and I'm Chrisy.

Kerry: 0:23

That was a good intro, Nick.

DJ Nick: 0:24

Thank you

Kerry: 0:29

I liked it Anyways. So today's episode I know lately we've talked a lot about birthdays and things, so we kind of morphed into our episode. Today we're going to talk about aging with grace. Yes, Chrisy came up with this idea and of all days, this is an excellent day for this podcast to air, because today is jim's birthday, birthday birthday. So, farm boy jim, my husband, this is his birthday. Today he turns the big six zero oh wow, it's a big it's a big one.

Kerry: 1:09

So, happy birthday. My love, uh love of my life, uh, keeper of my heart, uh everything I know. So this one's for you, babe. Yes, age with grace, please. Yes, I demand this.

Chrisy: 1:27

So Chrissy go. I recently heard a physician mention this just in talking in general about patients, older patients, and it stuck with me for some reason because I never really thought of it. But then when I started thinking about it, I realized there are definitely two types.

Kerry: 1:50

Did the physician use this phrase aging with grace?

Chrisy: 1:52

Yes, oh okay, well, I think they were commenting on that. They have some patients who are not.

Kerry: 1:59

Oh, okay.

Chrisy: 2:00

And the physician came off to me. It really wasn't anything we touched on at length. My interpretation of the reason to say this was because I think it's part of being a doctor with maybe a certain age group of patients that becomes a little bit of a frustrating part of their career. Oh wow, and not something that you can easily. I mean, doctors are about diagnosing and trying to offer solutions to health problems.

Kerry: 2:30

Right.

Chrisy: 2:31

And this is something that is definitely, I think, how a person mentally feels or thinks they need to approach the process of aging, and there's definitely people who and I just thought it was a very poignant, very spot on moment of somebody saying something that just really stuck with me Wow, aging with grace.

Kerry: 2:53

I think my mom aged with grace, I do, she really really did. Like I've said. She taught us how to live. She also taught us how to die, but she aged, I think, very gracefully.

Chrisy: 3:04

Yes.

Kerry: 3:05

She is, I think was the standard.

Chrisy: 3:07

Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah.

Kerry: 3:11

So what does that mean, I guess, when we talk about aging with grace?

Chrisy: 3:15

Well, that's hard because I mean we're all in the same boat here Yep. We're all going to age. We're all going to hit these other milestones that aren't as great the second half of our lives that they were the first half and it takes a special place in your mind, in the way you look at things, to be able to say I'm going to do this gracefully and without burdening myself or others with the stress of this.

Kerry: 3:50

Yeah, I mean because you can't do anything about it.

Chrisy: 3:52

It's going to happen, no, and I think that it's a test for all of us, because you really have to change your perspective on things.

Kerry: 4:02

Yes.

Chrisy: 4:03

And it's a new learning experience and I think that it really has a lot to do with being a little bit less selfish as you get older.

Kerry: 4:12

That is so insightful.

Chrisy: 4:14

You don't only. You know, when you're younger and I know I probably was more than anybody else then, I admit it, I was very selfish. You're're thinking of yourself. How is this going to make me feel better? I you want, you want to feel good, you want to have great outcomes, you want people to pay attention to you. And then you know you in your 30s and 40s I think in general a lot of people because you've had children, yeah, and you have to really give a big part of yourself up with that.

Kerry: 4:44

You start realizing it's not all about you.

Chrisy: 4:46

No, not, and it's not. Yeah, I mean and so.

Kerry: 4:49

So then, when you get to this latter half, people either seem to go one way or another. They revert back to it's about me again.

Chrisy: 4:57

Yeah.

Kerry: 4:57

Or they are like continuing that it's less about me, yes, and less about me is aging gracefully and more about me as aging grumpy old person. Right, so no one wants to be around Right, yes, and I think that becomes the bane of our existence.

Chrisy: 5:14

I just think that you're correct. I think, that there are some people who are at this point who become very selfish again, yeah, and don't really think about.

Kerry: 5:25

How it affects others. How it's going to affect others, you know, and it may not even be. It's not that they're not thinking about it. They just don't care how it affects others.

Chrisy: 5:34

Well, yeah, I think, because they're just like you know I'm. This is me, and I'm the one facing this. You're not. You're standing on the sidelines watching me have to do this, Right? So don't tell me what you think I should do to make things better.

Kerry: 5:48

Right.

Chrisy: 5:49

You know, they really don't want.

Kerry: 5:51

I remember my dad would say things like and I think we talked a little bit about this before like with whenever he was using the you know saline solution as his salt because he wasn't supposed to have. Oh my. Yes, I remember this he was supposed to have salt in his diet. So they took all the salt out of the hospital room. So he found the saline bottle and was putting that on his lettuce or whatever sandwich or whatever to try to get salt.

Chrisy: 6:14

I have to say that's very resourceful.

Kerry: 6:16

It was creative. But I remember he got so mad and he was like I'm so and so years old and I'm so and so, and you're not going to tell me what to do and this is how I'm going to do it and I've earned this at my age and that was kind of like where entitlement, yeah, and just. It was kind of that like I don't care what you think, you know I'm, you know where. My mom would have never she, she would have never done that Like she was, just so she was taking every chapter of her life for what it was and enjoying what she was doing in that part of her life. And yes, it's hard when things are ending, but you find you still find joy and you still find the value of what the new is.

Chrisy: 7:02

And that is hard.

Kerry: 7:03

That is hard especially as you're aging and you're losing things you know losing independence, or you're losing mobility, or you're losing your youthfulness or whatever. And I think that's kind of where Jim and I see each other right now a little bit, is we're realizing that we're getting into that next level of what we can and cannot do and that it's a hard adjustment sometimes, you know, because you want to hang on to those good times and whatever. But you just got to realize there's there's still good times to come, it's just different.

Chrisy: 7:30

Yeah, it's, it's adjusting. You're right, there are still things to look forward to. Yes, and just thinking about people who are our age or older facing all of this kind of stuff, their perspective on what that picture is, yeah, I, generally and I'm just saying generally, I, from what I've experienced, people who are generally, I think, having some trouble aging gracefully are ones that can't seem to get out of the past. They're remembering too much of what they were able to do, which we all do.

Chrisy: 8:01

Yeah, I'm not faulting you. I mean, of course we remember when we were younger and we were able to do which we all do. I'm not faulting you. I mean, of course we remember when we were younger and we were able to do this, and we were able to eat this with no problem, and you know, we could, you know, do this kind of stuff with our, you know, stretch this way with our body and didn't wake up, you know, feeling awful or hurting our neck just by sneezing, you know, or whatever. So it's easy to remember, because it's not that long ago, when you think of the grand scheme of our length of our life.

Chrisy: 8:27

None of this stuff seems that far out of reach and I have seen people and I mean I can think of people, not naming anyone, but there are people from just my whole life growing up. I could definitely put people in one or the other list of that line, if you were putting categories or you're making a list who aged gracefully, who did not, and it's almost like are you an Elvis or a Beatles fan? Are you a this or you? A that there are people.

Kerry: 9:00

There's not much in the middle. No, you tend to be one or the other.

Chrisy: 9:04

there's very little gray and I would like to say that I'm going to be a graceful ager, but I'm sure there's going to be times that I'm going to be a not graceful ager. So I hope that I can keep that feeling with me, because I really want to be the other way. I think. Holding dignity, having some class, you know, if you pride yourself on that it's important, it's important.

Kerry: 9:36

Yeah, I think right now for me I mean, I generally do try to find the positive and I generally do have hope and I generally do look forward to things I do tend to think more about that something is possible rather than impossible. But where I struggle with is when I'm around those that are not that way and it brings me down and I have a hard time holding on to that. I find myself right now I'm at that age where, okay, I've created healthy boundaries, I can stand up for myself and I don't want that to come across as not being aging gracefully. So sometimes I maybe lack in my projection at how it comes out, but I do think that overall I do look forward to every stage, but there is a period of mourning for what's gone.

Chrisy: 10:28

Oh, absolutely.

Kerry: 10:29

And it's natural.

Chrisy: 10:31

Yeah, I think you know I'm thinking about your, one of your new tattoos. Okay, it's not the most recent but it's the second, second most recent yes, which had a lot of you can say it, I am happy. Yep, I'm happy, and this was something very beautiful, but with tinge of sadness. Yeah.

Kerry: 10:54

But that you said One of my mom's final words or phrases, that things that she said, that wasn't just an answering. You know, can I get you something? Wasn't yes, no, was it? This was her thought and she shared it. I unfortunately didn't get to hear it firsthand, but she told my sister that helped take care of my mom. She told her and she was happy and that really it did stick with me.

Chrisy: 11:14

And what a gift to give to your family. Yeah, when you have to know that, you know when they're gone, it helps with, I think, a lot of closure. I mean, I don't want to speak for you, no, it does. I'm just thinking.

Kerry: 11:32

And for me this. I'm so glad you brought that up. I didn't even think about that when we were talking about this episode today. I have it on my wrist and it was funny when the tattoo artist wanted to put it on. He wanted to put it, so it was facing the other way and I'm like, no, I want it facing. So when I'm looking at my arm I can read it, you know, and because it is for me right, you know, I have found over these last two months that when I'm having a difficult day going through this grief process of my mom and things that are going on in my life right now and changes and struggles that I do look at that and I find like that's my hope because, like I said, I need hope. Yes, we do so. It does mean a lot. It does this. That was a great reminder. Good job, chrissy.

Chrisy: 12:14

No, you're welcome well you can see the impact it has on and I you know she wasn't my mom yeah you're very important, me and she was a world for you.

Kerry: 12:23

Yeah.

Chrisy: 12:24

And so it impacted me, to just the understanding of what she was able to do Give your family, I mean and maybe not that you wouldn't recognize this, but just being sort of the outsider and not so emotionally connected with the situation, I can see what that was truly a gift.

Kerry: 12:44

It was a gift.

Chrisy: 12:45

Whether you can't ever say it was this her intention or not, but she had it in her to be graceful. Yeah, and to leave that kind of impact with you is wonderful. I feel like my father when he passed. It was so fast.

Kerry: 13:00

Right.

Chrisy: 13:01

And just sort of came out of nowhere. Yeah, my dad wasn't even 70 when he passed away. You know we got hit with it quick and hard. Yes, and because we never saw, you know, cancer Right as what was going to take dad down, we thought it would be some. You know he struggled with high blood pressure.

Kerry: 13:21

Right, he was diabetic Heart issue. Yeah down, we thought it would be.

Chrisy: 13:23

As some you know, he struggled with high blood pressure, right, yes, so this was just like oh you know, oh my you know, and uh, there's just, we watch somebody get diagnosed with that in that way where, by the and with his, they found it, unfortunately, and just the type of cancer it was and the way the tumor was. Yeah, he could not negotiate out of that. There was not. They could try and help, they call it. I guess there was some treatments they could try to do and we did pursue that.

Kerry: 13:53

But it was just delaying the inevitable.

Chrisy: 13:55

I think, I think, and so the one thing that was left with me, though, from him, whether it was his intention or not, and I think, I don't think when people are in that process, they really have any intentions anymore. Now they're just really at a point where they're, I can't even imagine. It's something we're all going to face. So I'm not trying to candy coat it, but who knows how we're all going to perceive how our parents and what they leave for us?

Chrisy: 14:23

at that time. But I do feel he left with dignity and he gave. I admire him. It was not easy to face that, and yet I never heard my father sound like he felt bad for himself, right.

Kerry: 14:39

I'm sure he had anger.

Chrisy: 14:40

Yeah, because that's natural Right. I think he really tried to keep his sense of humor all the way to the end.

Kerry: 14:46

And there again it's a matter of that our parents. You know everything that they teach us from beginning to end. You know, and I think that almost it really shows who they innately are, not that people that don't age gracefully aren't innately good, but it also shows, if they don't age gracefully, what traumas did they go through in life that got them to that point? You know what dysfunctions in their life got them to that point. But I think, as an adult, when you see both sides, when you see the person that ages gracefully and you see the person that does not, you have to think about, well, how do I want my children to see me? Because? Do you experience that ripple effect?

Kerry: 15:27

You know, when you have the parent that ages gracefully or a family member that ages gracefully, and you can enjoy that process for as much as you can enjoy losing somebody, but to have those good memories, to have that, to see them do it with such dignity and grace, but then you see the other side and how much not only it takes from that person but it takes from the family and the caregiver and everybody around them, and how much it makes you struggle as a person to deal with that. You know that's. It really gives you stuff to think about. Well, how, how, when I age. This is important because I'm doing this to my kid, I'm doing this to my family, I'm doing this to my sisters, my siblings, my best friend, right your scribbling notes. What did I say that provoked you?

Chrisy: 16:20

Well, you do. You do because you bring up really good points, two things, and I am not a professional in this area at all. We're strictly with this episode, going off of personal experience. But I wonder, if I have two points, what in my thoughts? I wonder if people who generally aren't as graceful with the aging process, if they are generally people who feel like for a lot of their life, whether it's based in fact or not, we're cheated right out of things, possessions, physical things, physical or abilities, abilities or love, from whatever, or respect, and they really feel like, you know, they just weren't given, yeah, and so therefore, they're really that sort of selfish. Whether it's, you know, correct feeling or not, it just sort of amplifies as you get older. Yeah, because you know well, I didn't get this and I, you know, and you're telling me now I never will, you know or I never did this and I'll never can.

Chrisy: 17:24

And the other thing too is to just sort of maybe think of. This is I think, when you don't age gracefully, especially for your children, it totally distorts your child's memory of you Because it's a negative and it's a strong feeling and it's a draining process and it basically clouds your past with that person really bad, but with aging gracefully and going through the process of your life coming to an end for your child, I think if you can do it in a way that's dignified and it's a hard thing to do and I'm not going to promise you this is going to be me at all but I think it definitely helps, maybe amplify the way you lived oh, 100%. And so I think it's a lot easier to remember a parent or a loved one with all the good yes, because you in as bad as my father's, you know passing was and how it was hard to lose him and see him go through that.

Chrisy: 18:35

It really didn't take away any of my fond memories of him.

Kerry: 18:38

No, it made your fond memories fonder.

Chrisy: 18:41

Well, it kind of made me of him.

Kerry: 18:45

No, it made your fond memories fonder. Well, it kind of made me. Yeah, I know it, chrissy, it's emotional, I hear you it's okay.

Chrisy: 18:52

It made me realize, because I don't want to be crying.

Kerry: 18:55

You can be crying because this is our safe space and we're both vulnerable today.

Chrisy: 18:59

I can't let anybody think I'm a big baby. You're not a baby. So what it helped me do was realize how much he loved me for real. It solidified that, yeah, and I don't know that I always felt that Right Because you know growing up it was, you know it wasn't always fun and games Right and but it really it actually helped make all of that better, yeah, or less traumatic.

Kerry: 19:27

Yes.

Chrisy: 19:27

Or dysfunctional.

Kerry: 19:28

Yeah, I don't want to promote less dysfunction, right when we focus on that, on dysfunction but no, I know what you mean exactly, because you know, obviously my relationship with my dad had a lot of challenges.

Kerry: 19:40

I do have some good memories and I've always said I've kind of compartmentalize those and put them in a safe space. And I had to do that for that exact reason I had to protect those good memories because I didn't want them tainted by everything else. And I'm so glad I was able to do that. And I know that's hard for some people to do and I think, unfortunately, being a child that grew up with abuse and trauma, that is how I learned to survive and so I was able to keep some of those really good memories and that's what I fall back on. And I, like you with your dad, I did finally have a moment, right before my dad passed, where we were able to talk openly and you know I had that. We had that forgiveness One hundred percent, was able to keep those memories and so, although I still have bad memories, I can still look and say, but I, but there's these good ones, these fond memories.

Chrisy: 20:33

So, well, I think what has done for me is the fact that I really have to sort of search for anything bad, and as I've gotten older and remembering losing him too, it makes me sort of it kind of helps, yeah. It sort of cushioned anything that was bad, yeah, and made me maybe see a little bit of the humor in it. Yes, and I didn't have the level of problems that you did Everyone's story's different. Yeah, but I mean, if he would have been differently.

Kerry: 21:05

Yeah.

Chrisy: 21:06

Towards the end. I think it would have amplified all the bad. I understand that, yeah, but I think, because of where he was in his mind, that he was able to be gracious and vulnerable and just very, I mean I can't say, you know, really thinking of others. It seemed to me, anyhow, he wasn't just, you know, sitting there sulking, why me, why me, why did?

Kerry: 21:31

this happen to me.

Chrisy: 21:32

Yeah, it just it made me remember a lot of good. Yeah, your dad showed you how to die.

Kerry: 21:38

Yeah, and.

Chrisy: 21:39

I told and, as you said, about your mother yeah living and living and dying.

Kerry: 21:43

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you had a good experience on that end, as good as you can, exactly.

Chrisy: 21:49

It's never good when you lose them no but and you do wonder when you lose them. Young like that too, yes, although I'm not that young, my husband lost his parents way younger so there's a lot of mild, not that young. My husband lost his parents way younger. So there's a lot of mild things that he could have experienced with his parents. He didn't get a chance to that. I did, so I'm very lucky, yeah. But you know, yeah, I mean you're thankful for them and you know what they gave you.

Kerry: 22:16

Yeah. So part of all this too, with aging with grace, is preparing. So we've talked about this on other episodes, about as you're aging, you need to be prepared. You're not dumping all of this on your kids or your family or whatever. And so not only are you preparing how you will handle this as a person, how you handle this emotionally, but also the physical stuff, the financial stuff. Yeah, I just kind of want to take that in their consideration. But, yeah, this was a little heavy, but it was good. It's good to see both of us vulnerable especially. Yeah, I'm vulnerable, everyone, we all are. So this is something that a lot of people our age are dealing with is aging, whether it's ourselves or our parents or, you know, we're caretakers for somebody. So, yeah, it's okay to be vulnerable, yeah.

Chrisy: 23:04

I guess, All right.

Kerry: 23:06

Well, we're going to wrap that up and, yeah, I think we got a flashback Friday episode coming up. We'll look forward to hearing or talking to you all soon.

Chrisy: 23:15

Thank you Bye bye, bye.