When I Grow Up I Want to be an Old Woman

© Imelda Maurer, cdp February 19, 2009

I’m sitting here this evening in front of the TV answering some e-mail. I just saw the Kaiser Permanente Health Management ad – once again.

The words are sung: “When I grow up I want to be an old woman , an old, old woman.” I like that image in itself. I mean, after all, when do we ever hear anyone saying or even intimating that they want to ‘be an old woman.”

The accompanying visuals show old women – heavier than they were thirty years earlier -- but vital, happy, purposeful – looking in the mirror, keeping time to some music, laughing with friends, playing tennis, enjoying life –

It’s such a refreshing image. “I want to be an old woman.” The alternative is an early death. How often I think of my sister, three years my elder, who died at age 49, that she did not get to grow old along with me so that we could each grow, together, to be “an old woman, an old, old woman”

Kaiser has another ad in which the audio is short and simple: Kaiser: Thrive!

“Thrive” is a medical, nursing term. An inexplicable nursing condition is “failure to thrive” which can lead to death. But we all know that term, thrive, as holding so much more. What images does it bring to your mind’s eye? One thrives in a nurturing environment, in an environment which honors our uniqueness, our abilities, our life story. Above all, one thrives in the circle of loving relationships.

Kaiser has done a great favor in showing these ads because they shed a little light on the adventure and the sacredness of the latter years of one’s life.