By RICHIE DAVIS
Recorder Staff
SOUTH DEERFIELD — Five or six shades of gray sit comfortably in a relaxed living room.
But if the couch, easy chair, soft lighting and carpeting of the South County Senior Center provide a cozy setting for the 60- and 70-somethings this recent Monday evening, their conversation touches on topics some might find unsettling: aging, losses, grief.
But these seniors — about half the typical attendance of these biweekly “Living Fully, Aging Gracefully” support group sessions — find comfort in coming together at the homelike senior-center space to share in each other’s experiences of growing older.
This group, started about five years ago by John Berkowitz when he was still living in Shelburne Falls, along with two newer groups it’s spawned in Northampton, also deals with a third issue: “befriending death.”
The “ultimate taboo subject in a youth-oriented culture” that doesn’t appreciate elders or their life-wisdom, says Berkowitz, 68, death and dying are among the realities of getting older, along with dealing increasingly with the loss of a spouse, friends and relatives.
“I come here and try to fill the emptiness, or understand the emptiness,” says Janet Conley, 75, of Sunderland, at her second visit to these informal drop-in sessions. Six months after the death of her husband of 46 years, she adds, “I’m just new to all of this.”
The group, which meets on alternating Mondays at the senior center at 67 North Main St. at 6:30 p.m. through the end of April, is free and open to new members, as is a group alternating Tuesdays 2 p.m. at Rockridge Retirement Community, 37 Coles Meadow Road in Northampton. Berkowitz emails reminders of the groups’ meetings to a list of 215 people.
Members of this group, including facilitator Berkowitz — a former human-service worker who makes clear he’s the facilitator but not the teacher or even leader — bring poems, articles and sometimes their own writings to share for inspiration, often in the second hour, after a bathroom break that also allows time for stretching and snacks.
“There’s no agenda,” says Berkowitz, who began having these explorations in a group led by Sandra Boston in Greenfield after he turned 60, and wanted to launch his own biweekly sessions. “We can talk about anything that’s really important to us, and it’s all kept confidential.”
Some of these seniors have been coming to this seven-month group for two, three, four years, and although the themes are often the same as group members take turns around the circle, they say they’re constantly learning from their own experiences and each other’s.
Penny Tarasuk of Sunderland, 68, a Jungian psychoanalyst who’s completing the fourth draft of a book about her intimate experience with a former patient’s process of dying, tells the group, “I feel that aging and dying are most humanizing experiences of my life, and I just like being human with you.”
Tarasuk says there’s been “an explosion of consciousness” in society over the past decade about the need to be honest about death and dying. As she’s dealt through her professional practice and her own life with losses of all kinds, she tells others, “Its been a long journey. I am in this group because it’s local, it’s easy, I don’t have to take on any responsibility except for myself. And I like the support. There is such profundity in just being human. We’re all going to die. This doesn’t have to be a big deal, but yet it is.”
Berkowitz, noting that we live at a time of unparalleled medical advances, puts it another way: “It’s important for people to show up at their own death. I think we get blind-sided because we don’t realize that’s what life is all about, an awareness that things are impermanent.”
Yet living their lives to the fullest, members of the group remind each other gently, comes in accepting losses that often accumulate with years — something as simple as an added difficulty walking up stairs.
Ron Freshley, 78, of Northampton, says he feels his memory has been slipping — an impression heightened watching his brother-in-law’s aphasia and dementia, and having his own wife confront him about his forgetting. Like the hearing loss he’s also been experiencing, Freshley shares with the group, “It’s been a challenging couple of weeks. I feel haunted, almost. Sometimes I just don’t remember. Maybe it’s just that I’m feeling I’m sliding down the hill that (my brother-in-law) is sliding down.”
Now in his third year in this group he first approached out of curiosity about death, dying and loss, Freshley says he’s having his hearing tested again, watching a sister-in-law face chronic health issues and confronting the challenge of adapting to a new computer, all at the same time.
“How much of it is that we have to accept some losses with our aging?” asks Berkowitz, acknowledging that he, too, has been concerned enough about memory loss that he’s undergone some testing and has thought of doing memory exercises. “How much is natural, normal aging, versus a culture and a society that says you shouldn’t grow old and lose memory. There’s a lot of gray area.”
Suddenly, he realizes he’s made an unintentional pun, and the six people around the session begin laughing and adding their own jokes over hair color, gray matter.
Comfortable with each other, members return to their concerns about sometimes losing track of what they’re doing.
“It’s scary sometimes,” admits Conley, recalling a recent occasion when she forgot what the appointment was that she was driving to.
But pointing to author Olivia Hoblitzelle’s phrase “the grace of diminishment” in her Alzheimer’s memoir, “Ten Thousand Joys & Ten Thousand Sorrows” Berkowitz asks the group, “How do we treat ourselves about it? Do we kind of condemn and judge ourselves or accept it? Can we adapt with more notes or cue cards or whatever is going to help us? Or do we kind of turn against ourselves?”
A 71-year-old Deerfield woman in the circle, who asks to only be identified as “Susan” because some family member think it’s “weird” that she’s drawn to a group that’s focused on aging and dying — even though she sought it out four years ago to become more comfortable with what seemed like a natural process — tells the others that she and her husband invite each other on their iPhones to events on a shared master calendar to help each other remember what they’re both doing.
Yet the pace of technology can seem like another form of diminishment, some in the group say.
“I think there’s tremendous over-stimulation going on, from all kinds of media, from every direction, in rapid fire,” says Tarasuk, who admits, “I get very tangled up the computer and with new programs,” although she gets help from her son.
“A lot of the technology comes from a very logical, very organized left-hemisphere approach, and for many of us, that’s not how we grew up. And here we are, coming to an age as seniors, when we’re being hit more and more with very logical, fast-paced change. I think it’s anxiety-producing for all of us. And that disorganizes us more, so it’s a vicious cycle, and we get overwhelmed and scared.”
And then, to boot, there are all of those passwords and user names to keep track of.
“It’s bad enough to lose your stuff, but to do it with virtual stuff!” she said.
And yet, despite losses and struggles, group members agree, having time to share a couple of times each month helps put everything in perspective.
Berkowitz recommends to the group a book he recently found recently — “Rediscovery of Awe: Splendor, Mystery, and the Fluid Center of Life” as a prescription for approaching each day as new.
“Just to see a cardinal in winter, highlighted by white snow, it stops me in my tracks,” he says on this seasonally warm Monday. “I really relished the warmth of the day; I went out for a bike ride.”
Tarsuk adds, “I feel very privileged to be healthy and here, and able to offer myself to people who need support. It’s blessed work. We’re in it together.”
(Information about the drop-in group is available from John Berkowitz at 413-387-8439 or johnpberk@gmail.com)
You can reach Richie Davis at rdavis@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 269