A LIFE WELL LIVED

The phone rang yesterday morning.
It was the family ring...
And it was the call I had been expecting.
It was my dad.
And he said he had "good news"...
When he said "good news" I immediately knew what he meant.
The good news is in fact just that.
The good news is that my grandfather's battle with cancer ended.
The good news is that T is in a much better place than where he was just a a few days ago.

Lindsay interviewed T for one of her college classes. This part of her paper below describes T's story and what an amazing man and dedicated life he lived.

“How to recognize old age is when you try to do things you used to do but you don’t have the sense to know you can’t.” This quote from my interviewee is what he feels old age is. Age is quoted by many scholars and is something that fascinates the human mind. As individuals grow older they realize that age does not necessarily mean losing enthusiasm for one’s life. I learned this through my interview with my grandfather C.T. Kelly Jr., who is 86 years old. I selected him because of the desire to discover more about this person I have known my whole life. There has never been a time where I could open up and have him do the same, so I wanted to give myself the opportunity to learn something from a man that has always been in my life. He was born on March 2, 1922 in Elbert, Texas. He has a high school education level, his career was a plan operator for a natural gas company and after he retired he was a stock farmer. He was married to Raynell Burgess for 52 years and they had two children; a daughter named Pat and a son named Mike. Currently he is widower and is living in Throckmortan, Texas.

Baltes believed that change in a person’s life happens through episodes. In my interview I realized that T has experienced a normative history graded influence. These are events that happen to an entire generation, and in his case this was World War II. My grandfather explained how being in the service during this war affected the rest of his life. He said that it mainly affected the way he thought, not lived. He has always had a lot of respect for the military of our country, so when he see’s young people today not showing respect for the service it makes him angry because of what he went through when he was in the war. He had friends that died and it made him realize that life is short and not to take anything for granted. Events such as this, that happen to a group or cohort, generally affect people their whole life. This is why Baltes named this theory normative history graded.

When I asked T if he has ever been made to feel less than because of his gender, race, age, physical looks, or education level (GRAPES) he had trouble thinking of something. Being a middle class, Caucasian man it seemed like he had lived his life without too much discrimination. Finally he spoke about feeling less than because of his age. He explained how when he goes places like restaurants people treat him a little different. Even though he said he appreciates it, people will hold and open doors for him and he feels less than because he wants to do those things on his own. His independence is key as he ages; I believe he wants to hold on to every part of it that he can. This small feeling of being made less than has affected him in enough of a way to cause him to remember this little instance about ageism.

Dealing with the biological and social clock, I think T did feel pressured in one case. This theory states that a person may feel pressured by a “social clock” to conform to certain societal rules or standards. He was 25 when he got married, which according to societal norms for that time period, was more on the later side. He said that he had many friends that got married before they went into the military, and he decided that he didn’t want that for his wife. Having a wife and leaving her for war, without knowing if he would return was something that held him back from getting married early on. He felt pressured because he was past the social clock for the time to get married in his generation. So he did his job in the air force and when he got out at 25 he married my grandmother who was 19 at the time.

John Holland believed that a person could divide the world of work into six areas dealing with a person’s interests. These six areas were: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. T’s Holland code was RIS. Realistic describes him because he loves to work outdoors. He was a stock farmer for the later part of his life, which proves his love for working with animals and tools. He is investigative because he enjoys solving and analyzing problems. This is seen when he watches the news, he observes the problem first, and then tries to solve it. Social would describe him because he loves talking to other people, about anything. As an extrovert, he really enjoys the company of others.

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences describes a person’s actual abilities and skills. T is in the bodily/kinesthetic category because he is good with his hands and has good coordination. A farmer has to be aware of their surroundings and they have to use their body in skilled ways. He also has very good interpersonal skills. He can talk to almost anyone about anything and he definitely thrives on interactions with other people.

Strauss and Howe developed an outline for certain development depending on a person’s age. Since he was born in 1922 my T falls under the G.I. generation. Since a lot of men and women did not attend college during this generation I asked him about his education. He completed eleven grades and there was a post-graduate class before a person went to college. He took that and wanted to eventually go to A&M but he explained how World War II got in the way. This seemed pretty typical for most G.I.’s so I asked him if he knew anyone that went to college. He said out of the 39 in his graduating class, he knew of about five that actually went on to higher education. This fits in with Strauss and Howe’s theory on the G.I. generation perfect.

I had T take the Myer’s Briggs, which is a test that describes a person’s personality based on energy, how they gather information, how they make decisions, and how they structure their life. His MBTI was Extrovert, Sensing, Thinking, and Judgment. He was definitely an extrovert because he really enjoys discussing things with other people. He was sensing because he enjoys having the facts when he gathers information. He was thinking and not feeling in how he made decisions, and he was judgment because he is very scheduled. He plans out when he needs to go to the doctor, when he takes his pills, and when he is going to check his mail for the day. He thrives on structure and does not like surprises.

When talking about stress, or any pressure or demand that’s placed on a person, T explained how taking care of his wife, my Mema, while she was sick was his main stress. She was partially paralyzed when she had a respiratory arrest and was that was for about sixteen years. He explained how he worried and stressed about her. Also, when he was about 74 he was diagnosed with lymphoma. He said that he tried to not let him bother him, but it was a huge stress to know that he had a 50/50 chance of beating this kind of cancer. He really tried to not show signs of stress, and his main strategy for dealing with this type of anxiety was to basically not dwell on it. When T was younger and he was faced with stressed, he enjoyed working on cars or lawnmowers to take his mind on whatever pressures he was being faced with. Another strategy became watching TV. He loves to watch the news, so doing this also took his mind off the stress in his life.

The Locus of Control theory determines if a person has control of their lives. T has an internal locus of control, because he is a problem solver, he’s assertive, and he is motivated to take action. He started out by simply stating that he did feel in control of his life, but then he went on to explain, “well you think you feel in control of your life, maybe God’s in control, I don’t know.” I think that as long as hangs on to his independence he will continue to have an internal locus of control.

The next theory that I saw in T was James’ social selves. James stated that we have as many social selves as there are individuals who keep a picture of us in their minds. T grew up with normal social roles; he was a son, a friend, a husband, and a father. A time where his role had to change was win my Mema got sick and he had to become the sole caretaker of her. My mom explained to me that she saw a huge change in him, he never seemed to come across as compassionate and he never wore his feelings on his sleeve. She explained how he showed his compassion and his commitment to their marriage but his role as an older man changed into caretaker. He explained to me that he never wanted to have to put my Mema into a nursing home, and that it was highly important to him that he take care of her as long as he possibly could. This change in social selves affected him tremendously.

This commitment that T showed to my Mema proves that they had consummate love. Sternberg believed there were eight types of love that combined in different ways and included intimacy, passion, and commitment. T and my Mema had all three, but his commitment to her and their marriage was probably the strongest component of their love. When she was sick for 16 years of their marriage he sacrificed his time and health, when he was also sick with cancer, to insure that she was getting the best care from him. He knew that she would not survive as long if he was to place her in a nursing home, so his commitment to her and their marriage showed its true colors during that hard time.

Primary aging is defined as a shared, gradual, inevitable set of physical gains and declines. T said that he first saw signs on aging when he was in his 70s. He’s always had to wear glasses, so it wasn’t so much his eyes that he noticed. He noticed having balance issues, and hearing has also been something that has gone away a little. T had very nice and thick hair and it was still brown until he developed cancer. After he lost most of it, his hair grew back gray, but he is still blessed to have a full head of it in his eighties. Secondary aging are things such as diseases that people do not have control over. T’s main struggle with secondary aging came with cancer, but he has also had Meniere’s syndrome, high blood pressure, and degenerative disc problems in his back.

SIGNED: THANKFUL FOR THE SUN THAT COMES UP IN THE MORNING, AND GOES DOWN IN THE EVENING... PRAYING FOR NEW DAYS OF PEACE FOR THE FAMILY... MISSING YOU T- YOUR MEMORY WILL ALWAYS BE WITH US.