My wise writing teacher once asked her workshop group to think about the way we present elderly people in our stories. Must they all have gray hair, deep wrinkles, canes, or orthopedic shoes? Are those stereotypes that we want to perpetuate? Helen Mirren is 69 and wears a bikini. Jane Fonda is 77—I bet she doesn’t wear orthopedic shoes. I have elderly grandmothers in two of my novels and I’ve thought long and hard about this. In the end I envisioned characters who are a product of their environments and life experiences and wrote them that way.
Instead of polyester pants and cranky temperaments, is there a different, more vibrant way for an author to represent aging? Baby boomers are not going gently into that good night (to paraphrase Dylan Thomas). They’re running marathons, lifting weights, traveling to distant places, volunteering, working, and writing novels. And they’re the grandparents of many of your readers. Can you represent that in your story?
Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.