A New Knowing

It is commonplace today for the media to feature senior citizens who demonstrate the idea that you can "teach old dogs new tricks. " But when we think of older people learning, we often envision such things as: learning to use computers and cell phones, experiencing new forms of worship, learning to paint or play a musical instrument, accepting new clothing styles or beginning a new career.

But a more subtle kind of learning came to me this week not at the computer or during church or in conversation with young friends—welcome as these are as a part of my life.

It came as I was restoring old family scrapbooks—some are over 40 years old. I began keeping these pictorial and written records long before it became an American craze among homemakers. I started the journey when I was dating my future husband and I longed to hold the beauty of this time of life in my heart forever.

Now my scrapbooks are aging and need restoration. Going back over the years via picture and word has been a delightful, sometimes difficult, journey for me--much like the journey of life itself.

Restoring these scrapbooks, I happened on a new kind of knowing: a new understanding. I was reading encouraging letters and notes from my mother which I had saved over the years. Some were written to me when she was the age I am now.

As I read and reflected, a profound truth overwhelmed me. I understood my mother’s love in a new way. I read overtones in her words which had escaped me those years ago when they were written.

Then I reflected on her later years when she lived with Don and me. Sitting across the kitchen table from me, her ninety-year-old eyes shining with joy, she told me that she loved my husband like a son. I was warmed by her words, of course. We shared our lives as mother and daughter often do. And I could sense her unconditional love for each of her grandchildren in every inquiry she made about them. I thought I understood her love then.

But something has changed! Now I have a son-in-law, Matthew. And remembering my mother’s words, it occurs to me like a fresh revelation how deeply I already love Matthew. Our daughter carries his child and our grandchild. This floods my heart with joy. In a new way, I now understand my mother’s love for me, for my husband and for each of her grandchildren. It is a new kind of knowing that only experience can bring. It is a felt reality. As I turn the scrapbook pages I am learning something new. I am experiencing a deeper sense of my mother’s love and linking it to my own love for my husband, each of my children and my extended family. It is a new knowing.

Yes, old people can learn new things. Of course we cannot always keep pace with the younger generations. However, we can learn things that are of more importance than navigating the Internet or surviving changing fashions. With God’s help, we can gain deeper life understandings. In fact, for some kinds of learning, it is only when we are old and have experienced that we truly “know.”