Words of Wisdom from Loys Henry

Caption: "Hands holding wooden letters spelling words" by John Rensten, www.gettyimages.com

Words of Wisdom from Loys Henry

            My Grandmother, Loys Henry, is the wisest and most energetic older women I know. She is 83 years old but does not act like she is a day over 40. She has always been an inspiration to me as a grandparent and a role model of what I would like to be in the last stages of my life. Grandma Loys lives in the small town of Weston, West Virginia. She and her husband Wilfred had six children including my father, who is the youngest child. Grandpa Wilfred passed away fifteen years ago when I was only 7 years old. Both my grandmother and grandfather worked at the Weston State Hospital until they retired, long before I was born. Since my grandmother is in her eighties, retired, and widowed, she would certainly be placed in the late adulthood developmental stage.

            During the late adulthood stage of life, a person will go through the psychosocial crisis of “Integrity versus Despair.” When I asked my grandmother what she thought of the crisis occurring at her stage, she responded with a chuckle. She said to me, “Honey, that is about the truest thing I have ever heard.” Typically, older people are categorized as slow and possibly lacking in the productivity they once had. My grandmother likes to live opposite to the societal standard. She lives on her own, organizes and leads events for the local senior center, makes crafts that she sells around the country, and travels constantly to her children’s homes to spend time with family as well as overseas to go on adventures of her own. Grandma Loys also said that she does not like the term “elderly” because it denotes a negative view of older people, often categorizing them as inefficient. I believe that, so far in my grandmother’s late adulthood, she has been successful in choosing to live with integrity rather than despair.

            I later asked my grandmother what skills she thought she used when trying to overcome other crisis stages in her life. Grandma Loys told me that growing up with her Messianic-Jewish family taught her about morals and responsibility. She said that many of the concepts from the religious activities her family participated in were what she used to get through the hardships she faced throughout her life.

            Wiesmann and Hannich, psychologists at Greifswald University Medicine in Germany, published an article focused on the coping mechanisms in the four developmental tasks in the integrity versus despair stage of development. The four tasks are upholding an active life, reevaluating and being satisfied with one’s past, having a plan of how to maintain one’s health, as well as examining their sense of coherence. Ultimately, they showed that a person’s sense of coherence, or how they viewed their world, was the biggest defining factor of whether they would have a successful outcome for their developmental crisis in old age (Wiesmann & Hannich, 2011). While there is neurobiological research being done in the present, there was little to no research done specifically on this stage of development as a specific class of neurobiological activity.

Oftentimes, older adults who have lived past the lifetimes of many of their loved ones can find themselves leaning towards despair instead of integrity. Depression creeps up and can overwhelm them to the point that they give up on living life to its fullest. While talking to my grandmother, I asked how she coped with those feelings of depression and her answers coincided with the previously mentioned research. She had to remind herself that the truth she knew about life had not changed, remember that she had lived a productive and happy life, and never let herself just sit around doing nothing.

Some questions for the readers are as follows: Why do you believe there is a lack of sufficient neurobiological research in gerontology? Do you believe Grandma Loys’ religious upbringing was a strong factor in her success during crisis management in late adulthood? Do you think there is a “stereotype” for what a person in their later years should be like?

References

Wiesmann, U., & Hannich, H. (2011). A salutogenic analysis of developmental tasks and ego integrity vs. despair. International Journal of Aging & Human Development, 73(4), 351-369.