ABSTRACT
The Third and Fourth ages of life bring an increasing preoccupation with our inner selves, our capacity to live with our own pasts and the increasing losses of the present. These spiritual matters are central to the wellbeing of the newly expanded numbers of the very old and in turn the health of the societies in which they live. Learning to come to terms with themselves and their past is formative of how individuals view the future they have remaining. As finitude presses more urgently, the preoccupation with life review, often wholly unshared with any others, can be anywhere on a continuum from reassuring satisfaction with a life well lived to profound anguish and deep guilt. This chapter explores how the over-abundance of time, created by the Fourth Age restrictions which result from multiple chronic illnesses, provides the pre-conditions for extended life review. It also employs recent UK data to examine the circumstances of the ill-heath of people on their “last lap”. The connection between the two has been rarely mentioned in prior literature and even less researched. Attention is also given to personal accounts from the Spiritual Development and Aging Study; highlighting the role of religious beliefs in old age self re-evaluations. The analysis and the interpretation interrogates the triangular relationship between the predominant patterns of illness, the absence of meaningful stimulation and the unseen iceberg of “biographical pain” in late old age.
