Up to the day the letter arrived from the Department of Education and Science thanking me for my services to education, it was easy to push the thought of aging to the back of my mind.   It jostled for place there with all the other flotsam and jetsam of life that couldn’t be dealt with immediately.   Old age has a habit of creeping up on us almost imperceptibly.

First there is the stiffness in the joints in the early morning and the occasional lapse of memory.  Then, if one took time to notice of them, wrinkles appear on the face and sprinklings of grey in the hair.  Change comes almost as an affront.   Why should we appear so altered when inside we feel the same?   However the change of occupation and life style that is inherent in retirement from any occupation, forces us to come to terms with the inevitable aging process and to accept the fact that we are growing old.   This is not an earth shattering discovery for those around us but it means a profound change of attitude for the individual involved.

I should like to be able to report that my approach to retirement was measured and philosophic and in keeping with a life of welcoming what providence brought.  But this was not the case.   My reaction was more like Dylan Thomas’ advice to his dying father, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

When that fateful letter from the Department of Education and Science arrived I knew that the final curtain had come down over my teaching years.   There was now no outlet for the experience gathered nor any purpose in continuing the research.   Just when Primary School Education was reaping the rewards of insight into curriculum and best practice I had to withdraw my services.   There had been many lean years in Primary Education and now that more generous resources were becoming available I was out of active service.   However much I might dislike the consequences of reaching the retirement age, there was no going back.

Throughout my working career I never had enough time to read all I wished.  Now I consoled myself that at least I could make good that loss.   But strange as it may seem when there are no longer colleagues with whom to discuss new found information, there is little incentive in pursuing it more deeply.   Much as I looked forward to having ample time for reading and reflection and the enrichment it brings, I soon found that real energy and satisfaction is generated from the cut and thrust of debate which forms part of a thinking person’s response to provocative ideas,   One of the biggest disadvantages of my  retirement was to have no longer a place in this forum of thought.

But as acceptance of the inevitable gradually took hold I began to appreciate the good things that come with a slower pace of life.   Now that there was no compulsion to rise early it became a pleasure to taste the first of the morning voluntarily.   It was satisfying to notice  the changing seasons especially when it seemed that each unspoiled morning gave one a vantage point for observation.   Autumn had never been closely watched because it was a time for firm focus on the importance of new beginnings in the school year.   Now there was time to enjoy the blue September skies and the magnificent autumn sunsets.   The defiant fiery hues of chestnut and beech and ash trees could inspire the aging spirit.   Dying leaves might be tinged with sadness but their passing showed an admirable attempt to fade out in glory.

Then there was the savouring of frosty mornings without having to cope with the hazard of icy roads and half empty classrooms.  Winter and wind and rain could now be avoided or endured as one wished.   On particularly wet days there was the energy in the surging river and the ever changing patterns on the water as raindrops formed dimples on the fast flowing stream..   Spring, when brighter days herald its approach, is always a joy to anticipate and observe but more so when there is time to see the protected leaf buds open in sunshine or to prolong  spirit lifting visits to  bluebell carpeted woodlands.

Enjoyment of summer hasn’t changed much in retirement but there is now no need to pack the longer days with activity.  September will not come demanding a return to schedules and timetables.    Yet there is an aspect of the week that has lost its significance in the more leisurely pace at present enjoyed.   I miss looking forward to the weekend especially the occasional long one with the bank holiday attached.  I miss too, waiting for the relaxation of mid term breaks and the seasonal holidays of Christmas and Easter.  In a sense life is one long holiday now but the leisure this implies cannot compare with the feeling of relief when  turning the key in the school door on Friday evenings or the sense of liberation that used to come with locking up for the summer holidays.

Since school and college days the poetry, especially the English poetry committed to memory, has never been far from the threshold of thought and snatches of its wisdom has become a constant in my life.   Age and experience has increased understanding of the universal concepts expressed by the great poets and woven them into the fabric of life.  However, the wealth of native sentiment and instinctive empathy with Gaelic poetry had somehow escaped me until I was recently given an old copy of Fion na Filiochta.   It is not possible to exaggerate the nostalgic response reading these long forgotten poems evoked.   My spirit was fresh again with the unspoiled response of youth to poems like Gile mo Chroi do Chroi-sa a Shlanaitheoir, or Comhairle don Duine Og.     I am not ashamed of the tears I shed over Pearse’s Fornocht do Chonac thu as understanding the intensity of the sacrifice dawned on me for the first time.   Belatedly it caused me to value the advantage age has over youth.   As I remember these poems youth still inhabits them but now in my more mature years I realise that, like the classic English poetry, they too have played a not insignificant part in the overall pattern of my spirit.

Faithfulness to prayer has always been a struggle and yet a hunger.   In retirement there has been little change except that the struggle is a little less and the hunger a little more. I find it easier to rest in God and feel more at ease with Him and with myself.   I think it was Voltaire who said disparagingly that religion is the last of our loves.   I can only hope that, in a good sense, this is true for myself.

All in all retirement has proved a more satisfying phase of life than I dared hope for.   The dying light brings its own consolation. For just as twilight softens the contours of landscape and the objects in it, so too the landscape of the soul adjusts to life’s evening and the mental vision gradually adopts a more mellow approach to its vicissitudes.   It is easier now to rejoice in the music of what happens and to follow Browning’s advice:  “Trust God, see all, nor be afraid”.

Kathleen Minogue rsm
South Central Province