Version 1 Original Ep. 1 Things Fall Apart, Things Come Together

What if some of our most deeply held beliefs about aging are wrong—or, at best—one dimensional?

In this inaugural episode of Age, Reconsidered: Rethinking What it Means to Grow Older, host Kelly O'Neil from the Nova Scotia Centre on Aging introduces a new podcast series exploring what it means to grow older in a culture that often views aging through a narrow lens. Drawing on research, lived experience, and thoughtful conversation, the series invites listeners to question common assumptions about aging and consider more expansive ways of understanding later life.

Episode 1 features a conversation with renowned bioethicist, physician, and educator, Dr. Nuala Kenny, who reflects on aging from both professional and personal perspectives. The conversation explores ageism, the ethics of care, intergenerational relationships, and the tension between cultural narratives of decline and "successful aging." We also hear from a group of older women whose reflections on freedom, gratitude, identity, curiosity, and belonging offer a rich counterpoint to stereotypes about growing older.

Why does this matter? As populations age, the stories we tell about aging shape everything from public policy and healthcare to our expectations for our own futures. We hope you’ll come away with a deeper appreciation of aging as a complex and deeply human experience—one that includes both gains and losses, vulnerability and resilience, endings and new beginnings. Rather than offering simple answers, this episode invites us to stay curious about who we are, who we are becoming, and what it means to live well at every stage of life.

Links & Resources

Nuala Kenny’s work: 

https://medicine.dal.ca/news/2018/11/06/dr__nuala_kenny__a_pioneer_of_canadian_bioethics.html

Connie Zweig’s The Inner Work of Age: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Inner-Work-of-Age/Connie-Zweig/9781644113400

Credits

Host: Kelly O’Neil, Nova Scotia Centre on Aging

Guests: Nuala Kenny and ‘The Sisters and the Ladies’ at Caritas Residence in Halifax

Keelan Black, recording and production engineer at Mount Saint Vincent University

Theme music: "Family Tree" by Danny Duberstein. Licensed through NeoSounds and used with permission. 

Bridge Music: “The Mountains” by Pumpupthemind. Under open license through Pixabay.

This podcast series was made possible through a generous grant from the Entente Foundation, supporting innovative projects that improve the lives of older adults.

agereconsidered.ca         agereconsidered@msvu.ca

Transcript

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Ep. 1 Things Fall Apart, Things Come Together

 | Time | Topic 

| 0:00 | Welcome to Age Reconsidered – Why we need a new conversation about aging.
| 2:00 | Changing the Narrative – Dr. Nuala Kenny on ageism, successful aging, and what we've misunderstood about growing older.
| 8:30 | What Makes a Good Life? – Older women reflect on freedom, friendship, curiosity, creativity, and contentment.
| 17:15 | Gratitude and Vulnerability – Nuala reflects on illness, resilience, and what matters most after eight decades of life.
| 21:00 | Listening, Freedom, and Knowing Yourself – Older women’s conversation about slowing down, radical acceptance, and becoming more fully yourself.
| 25:15 | Ageism and the Stories We Tell – How cultural narratives influence policy, relationships, and the way we see older adults.
| 29:40 | Holding Both Sides of Aging – Connie Zweig's idea that aging includes both gain and loss, decline and growth.
| 31:10 | Closing Reflections – Reimagining aging with curiosity, respect, and possibility.

Host 

[00:00:00] This podcast series was made possible through a generous grant from the Entente Foundation, supporting innovative projects that improve the lives of older adults. 

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Welcome to Age Reconsidered, where we rethink what it means to grow older I'm your host, Kelly O'Neil. We're coming to you from the Nova Scotia Center on Aging at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax. Most of what we hear about aging is pretty one-sided. This podcast is here to help change that narrative. We're exploring research about aging and turning it into conversations, stories, lived experiences, and ideas from people who are rethinking what it means to grow older[00:01:00] 

Because aging isn't just something that happens to other people, it's a reality for all of us. And as a wise young person once said to me, "We're all living this life for the first time."

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Dr. Nuala Kenny was the founding chair of the Department of Bioethics at Dalhousie Medical School in Halifax. She's a distinguished doctor in pediatric medicine a sister of charity an educator, scholar, and author who's considered to be a pioneer in Canadian bioethics. Currently a professor emerita at Dalhousie University Dr. Kenny is also an [00:02:00] older adult living in a retirement residence. We spoke about getting older and thinking about aging from an ethical point of view.

Well, thank you again, like so much for being here. I really appreciate it. And I wanted to start, our podcast is about changing the narrative on aging, and I'm really interested in your thoughts about whether we need to change the narrative, and if so, in what way? 

Nuala Kenny

Well, uh, thanks for letting me do this, Kelly. It's an interesting experience. And, and lifelong, I've been an, a medical educator and an ethicist. I was this world-renowned specialist in pediatric ethics, so right now to be doing the other side of aging ethics is a very interesting experience. So I often talk about my reflecting on what is the narrative and on how does that narrative play out, and what are the strengths of the narrative and what are the things that must be challenged, that must be [00:03:00] changed?

But whereas I studied formally for the pediatric ethics, I did a bioethics scholarship at Georgetown, I mean, I did all kinds of stuff after my pediatric training, the way I've learned aging ethics is from the inside out. It's, and it's a, a very interesting, different experience. I still go to read references and resources, but my answers for you will in large part be based on, on my experience and, and my reflection. So I'm, I'm honored to do this. I would say briefly in answer to the first question, so we could explore as you'd like Some of my concerns about the present narrative have to do with the fear that young people have about the elderly and the elderly almost being in competition for scarce resources and the elderly being very expensive to care for.

It has set up rather than a united [00:04:00] family, intergenerational, cross-generational response to need and care, a, a kind of competition, and it's because young people don't know old people anymore. I mean, houses are not built so that grandpa can be dying in the backyard in the, in the little special bedroom that was at the back of the house. Children are not said, "Come on now, Nancy, it's your turn. You have to bring grandpa his porridge this morning." And y- the little eight-year-old would go off, and there would be the grandpa dying, perhaps cognitively impaired, but it was normal. And then, "Hi, Poppy. Hi, Poppy. Here's your porridge. Here's your porridge."

Now, there's such a distance so that there's something about the narrative that has to change rooted in that kinda intergenerational concept. The second thing I would say to you is there's a narrative, and, and, and I know you and I have talked about this privately, about the narrative of what, what's called successful aging.

Now please understand, I'm a [00:05:00] doctor. Preventive medicine is very important, and there are things that we can do during our lifetime to ensure that as we age, our, our health and function is as good as it can get. But, but, but the successful aging narrative, you know, the 102-year-old who's skating on the Rideau Canal, that's the exception to the rule, and that narrative, the danger about that is it then becomes judgmental and pejorative for persons who have had a course that's very different.

And then maybe the th- the third general concept that I would say to you, very interesting that we have to change the narrative about what we can do and can't do and, and empowerment because there's still this interesting thing as a pediatrician I know, and you think of your own children and grandchildren and grandnieces and nephews When they're growing, at first they sit, and then, "Look, look, look, he's standing. He's standing. Hey, he's walking. He's walking." And then, [00:06:00] you know, you S-P-E-L-L what mommy doesn't want him to know, and then he can S-P-E-L-L. You get into language, you go to school, you graduate. I mean, part of the ethical issues with young adults and, um, and adolescents in you- in, in our time is from pandemic on.

We lost all of these kinds of appreciation for milestones, and yet when we get older, there are milestones, but they're not of achievement. They're all of decline. You have to stop driving. Huge if you've been a driver. I mean, I can tell you, I've, uh, been driving since I was 16, and the loss of the ability to just jump into one of the cars that the sisters have where I live, um, and go buy my own snacks at the grocery store, go buy a new pair of pajamas, I have to depend on others all of the time.

And I'm lucky because I ha- live with sisters, so I have a, a kind of a... Even though I'm the only doctor in my religious community, so my whole life I've been around [00:07:00] the world by myself. I've been with other doctors, but not with other sisters. So I'm kind of this cute, funny little hybrid. I'm not like a, a woman who's now widowed, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, who has to move from her own home into Caritas, into the retirement facility.

I do have the some sisters around that I knew, at, at least in, in general ways, but that communal living is both, and I'll conclude with this as a general theme, communal living is both a great, great blessing and a huge challenge. And one of the great things about living in the retirement facility I have, 'cause now more than half of it are laypeople, they're not, they're not sisters, they are these laypeople, is to see the fidelity of care, but also see the huge, huge pain when you'll see a m- uh, this one couple that I visit them all the t- say hi to them all the time, uh, and their mom h- his mom has just died. And I said, "Your fidelity to care [00:08:00] is amazing." But I remember that a year and a half ago after I first moved in to the facility, he said, "Sister Nuala, my mother didn't know me today." So the heartbreak of the cognitive impairment, it's real, but there's such a variety of cognitive impairment that empowerment also means using all of what you've got, any talents, any abilities, to the best of your ability for as long as you can.

Host

Nuala makes an important point. The public conversation about aging seems to revolve around two extremes, the story of inevitable decline and the story of exceptional so-called successful aging. I wondered what would happen if we simply asked older people how they understood this stage of life[00:09:00] 

Older Woman’s Voice

I think most people think if we're this age, we should be just getting ready to die But we're not. We're ready to live.

Host

Nuala Kenny introduced me to a group of friends who live in the same residence where she lives. The building houses a mixed community of Sisters of Charity and older people from the wider community. Nuala's friends refer to themselves as the sisters and the ladies, which always gets a laugh, as though the two groups are mutually exclusive. The residence is situated in a booming construction zone where a massive housing development of residential and assisted living units is underway, a testament to Nova Scotia's growing and aging population.

Conversation with “The Sisters and the Ladies”

Would people mind, [00:10:00] uh, like I would just, I used, I think I mentioned that last time, I used to ask people's, everybody's age added up and how many years of experience are in the room. Are you, if you're comfortable sharing your age, so I'm just gonna go around just so I kinda get a quick snapshot. I'm gonna be 88 tomorrow.

Oh, happy birthday. Yeah. Today is my 88th birthday. Fantastic. How about you, Beth? I'm having a lobster dinner. Oh, nice. How about you, Phyllis? How old are you? 87. Okay. And Vonda? 86. Oh, my gosh. 82 on March 17th. May 17th. I'm 60- I'll be 66 in September. You're just a baby. Chicken. 88. Sheila? Yes. If I'm 87. 81 next month. 87. 84. You're 84. 28. Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve '95? [00:11:00] '95, Christmas. Oh my gosh. Yeah, okay. Wow. Yeah, so- Good range ... I am curious about, to me a good life means something different for me now at 66, 65 than it did when I was 20, for example, or 28. Mm. And I'm curious what... And, and I would open it for everyone, what's a good life mean to you for the person you are now?

Um, I think being comfortable in my own skin, as some other people were saying. Um, not trying to impress anybody, but just living, um, a- as well as I can. Um, enjoying community life but also, um, enjoying the fact that I'm not, uh, burdened by 9:00 to 5:00 or it used to be like 9:00 to 10:00 PM or something when working. Um, so it, it's, it's very, uh, it's very comfortable here and good company, a [00:12:00] nice spirit in the house. So, um, it's... I'm very content here, so I'm grateful for that. I find that it, it's a, a... feeling free about whatever's going on, and being curious about things, and, and being excited about learning new things, learning every day new languages, uh, people from different countries.

That's, that's a good life to, to be able to view the world in a new way. But I think it also depends a lot on your physical, uh, you know- Wellbeing ... how, how your wellbeing or your personality as well, and, uh, reflecting back on your life's experiences. Um, you know, why did I get so excited about different opportunities to [00:13:00] work in South America and learn other languages? And that just brought me so much life, and I can reflect back on that and say how fortunate I was. Since I've, I've been here for about five years and prob- I'm 28 now. And to think, um, to think how my perspective has changed as to what a good, good life looks like, I think, um, in a lot of ways, because I was young, I was thinking about, oh, grandiose things and all the things that you can accomplish, and there's always more, more, more, more that you can do.

Um, and I think a lot of the things that I've come to realize knowing this community and the community of women that I'm around is the little things are often the ones that are m- most meaningful. Your health, being able to be active, the good company that you have. Um, and not so much, again, like, uh, what other sisters have said about worrying about what other people think, but being content within yourself [00:14:00] and being able to appreciate the little things, and I think that means more than anything.  Right now, for me, a good life is doing the two things that I love the most, writing, I write, I'm, I'm publishing my sixth book. Uh, it'll come out the end of June. And painting. I love to paint. And, and, um, so those, now that I have time to spend on just on myself and amuse myself, those are the two things that I am happy to be doing, and I'm glad that my health allows me to do it, that I'm mentally able to, to write, and, um, and still my fingers and hands are all good.

I don't have arthritis, so I can paint and, um, do some things just to please [00:15:00] myself. I pleased others all my life, and now I'm pleasing myself. I think I've had the good life. I'm totally blessed all the way around, and to be here And to be part of this group is a true blessing. I have been truly blessed from one end to the other, and I thank God And always will, and I mightn't always remember, but when I do, it's wonderful. I suppose. Anything you'd like to add, Wanda? Oh, my life is very simple. I came in Canada. I don't have a big education, but I'm happy with [00:16:00] my life. I have two beautiful son. I lost my husband when he was 61, and I have to work about myself, but I make it, and I'm happy here with everybody. My mom used to say, "You gotta go to, uh, t- study more, Wanda." And I say, "Mama, I wanna be here and help you in the kitchen." And I finish my grade five, I say, "My study's enough." And I don't feel regret. I came in Canada, no speak English, and I see I manage it very well

Host

As I listened, it became clear that these women weren't measuring their lives by accomplishments or regrets. They were [00:17:00] describing what a good life had come to mean, and their answers were remarkably ordinary. They spoke about friendship, curiosity, creativity, freedom, gratitude. I wanted to know how Nuala, after more than eight decades, would answer the same question

Conversation with Nuala Kenny

One of my, uh, favorite phrases is, "It ain't over till it's over," and I, and I think that comes with having lived 65 years. Mm-hmm. You know, you, you learn a few things in spite of yourself. Oh, you're a baby. You're a baby. 65, come on. Get your, go get your skipping rope. What, what have you, um... And I don't mean it in th- this sort of corny sense of looking back, what have you learned in life, but what do you, what do you value about what you know now and about the person that you are now?

I, I would say to you, um... I, I gotcha, I should give you two things 'cause otherwise we'll be here for the next week, and we don't have time for that. I would say [00:18:00] to you, one, I have an extraordinary, extraordinary sense of gratitude, not just but for the family that I grew up in, for the education, for my vocation, for being able to serve sick children, for the care that I've given to others, for the gifts of people who have understood and supported me throughout all of that.

I mean, enormous, enormous, overwhelming sense. Yeah, I did some stuff I... And once in a while, maybe I, maybe I was too pushy 'cause I'm used to ordering people around and telling them what to do. May- maybe. But because I was a pediatrician, a lot of that was ameliorated. You can't, you can't be a baby doctor and be an arrogant you-know-what. You, you can't do it. You can't do it. So that gratitude for the, all of those experiences. But I would also say to you, and this is particularly with [00:19:00] this 10 years after my first breast cancer, almost 10 years to the day, and I, so I thought I was back into the statistically average kind of... The second breast cancer.

Boy, what I have learned about vulnerability. But- Oh, sorry, a little emotional here Vulnerability. I mean, thank God I, I have the faith I have because it has given me hope that things do die, but there was always hope for new life. Um, and I am so, so grateful that in my vulnerability I can still, I still do blogs, I still write, I st- I still give, I still do podcasts with Kelly. Um, uh, but I, I, I, I do webinars. Um, uh, [00:20:00] uh, and I would say to you the deepest prayer I have is if there comes a time when I can't do those things because of cognitive decline, I've got two good, good friends, one sister, one doctor friend of mine, and I've said to, "If you see me losing it, please let me know."

And I'm terrified because being intellectually competent has been so big, and I just hope that if I lose it I don't know that I'm losing it, and it, it happens with people loving me and supporting me.

Host

It seems to me that Nuala and I weren't talking simply about aging, illness, or even vulnerability. We were talking about relationships, about the people who witness our lives and who stay beside us as life changes. Maybe one of the boons of growing older is a different way of paying attention to each other. The sisters and the [00:21:00] ladies had some thoughts on this.

Conversation with “The Sisters and the Ladies”

We're very lucky. Not everybody has the same, um, position where they can have people listen to them, uh, even if you're y- you know, not feeling well. But to really, and not to correct people, but to just listen and, um, g- m- just be with them. That's... Do you listen differently now than when you were 20 or 30? Oh, I think so. Yes. How, how is that? How is it different? Um, well, um, I think, well, we've had a lot of help getting trained with being good listeners and, and also being attentive to other people. So I guess it's the education part that we've, that I've been lucky enough to be part of. And, um, I've been teaching people who have a different language than me, so I've learned to listen much better and try [00:22:00] to, you know, even learn their language, which is a really something that happens to you when, when you do that.

So there's something, I mean, in my own experience, I think the slowing down has a lot of benefits. Mm-hmm. Benefit. Mm-hmm. You can sit and listen and be still more. Right. That's, in my own experience, that's, that's the case. I have to go with this question. What do you like best about the person you are right now? I think I, I, I feel more comfortable with the person that I am and the choices that I make and, uh, I guess I'll stop there. Great. Uh, I, I feel freer and, um, I always love the sentence, what other people think of you is none of your business.

So that, you know, you're not trying to measure up or anything. Um, [00:23:00] in fact, at one time they called me Free Alice. Who was Free Alice? So it's, it's, it's an inner freedom and an outer freedom, and, and, and accept the fact that you might make mistakes. Might. Yeah. Like every day. Um, I think, um, at this point, I think I know who I am. You know, I c- I know myself. Uh, and I can... I'm free to be myself- Mm-hmm ... in comparison to when I first came here and I didn't know a soul, and you know, so you don't stretch yourself out too much. Um, and, uh, and also maybe more ready to accept the reality of, of who you are at this point, you know. And as you say, if I make a mistake, so what, you know?

It doesn't, it doesn't bother me as much. You know what I mean? More, [00:24:00] more yourself, more myself. I don't see yourself. I'm sorry. You just reminded me of a, a friend and colleague who's, uh, me... She's, uh, considerably younger than me, and, and she was talking about some difficulties in her own life, and sh- the term she used was what she had come to after these difficulties was radical acceptance.

Radical. Mm-hmm. And I thought that was just a wonderful- Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. I feel proud. I feel proud because losing even my husband '61, we paid, finished pay the house three year before he die with cancer in eight month, and I manage my two boys, they are in Toronto. They have their own life, and they're doing well, and they said, "Mom, why you don't come here with us?" Because you have to live your own life, and I have to keep going with my life, and I will survive, and I do survive. [00:25:00] So what do you want more than that? Nothing else, I say. I'm proud who I am.

Host

Freedom, curiosity, knowing who you are, acceptance— none of these ideas fit the easy stereotypes we often hear about aging so if one of the gifts of growing older is seeing our lives with greater perspective why isn't this part of our larger cultural story about aging? My conversation with Nuala turned to the role that ageism plays and to the consequences of limiting narratives about older people.

Conversation with Nuala Kenny

So if we have a, any ageism in our society, and I'm telling you, having done pandemic priority setting in- including for the government of Canada, I mean, people would, would say, "Look, let's just set an age, and if [00:26:00] any, if, if you're over 65 you ne- never get to the hospital if you have bad COVID. You'll never get a ventilator."

What? As my good Irish nana would say, "What in God's name is that?" I mean, you can be 82 and be in a better shape to recover from COVID than being 46 and having chronic illness, and the age, that's when age is not just a number. I mean, it can't be, but when you think without uniqueness, when you think without the particular gifts and talents of the elderly that, that should be promoted and maximized to the best, doing anything and everything that you can as long as you can so that that challenge, that demographic challenge is why I think things that you're doing even with this, the, you know, this podcast and series, it's got bigger implications than...

This is a big subject, and we need to find ways to talk about it comfortably, without [00:27:00] judgment, with respect, and deeply humbled. This thing about, you know, revel in both the hard things in your life, that you've survived them, the wonderful gifts, and we need better ways to respect the talents and the wonder and the gift of aging. Aging is a gift. And I, I think, I believe that, absolutely, and I think that's a message that isn't widely embraced outside of people who are aging, I think. That's my experience. And- Not embraced by aging either, Kelly. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Well, lots of people are, uh, fall- Kicking and screaming ... fall into- Yeah kicking and screaming or crying The phrase fear and loathing comes to mind. There's, it's not, it's- Uh-huh. Uh-huh ... it goes deep, and it's very visceral to me sometimes. Exactly. There's a, at a societal level, there's such a, a distaste or almost a disgust, I would say- Yeah, yeah ... of, of aging people. At, no, no question.

So where does that come from? Like, what do you think that's about? Oh, well, I bet some of, some of the things I've already [00:28:00] said. Most of it comes, I believe, from lack of familiarity. It, it is this distaste, 'cause it wasn't always that way. Now, that doesn't mean that throughout history, people haven't been in families that have been abusive or neglectful. It's not that they haven't in historically, even, I mean, even today. I mean, I'm a, I'm an expert in child abuse on, for my sins, but it's not that, that historically everything was rosy and perfect, but the way in which we dealt with the elderly and intergenerational concerns was really quite different. And I keep repeating this, but it's, for me, so…

It's, you see all of the hype about things like the tsunami of the elderly. That's an expression that, I mean, I've- Mm. I've seen it written and, as if, oh my God, all these ... It doesn't all have to be fearful. We can stop this horrible ageism and, and negativity towards older persons. We can stop it. Who was the great politician who said, [00:29:00] "To not speak in the face of evil is complicity"? And unless we can in fact pull together for the most vulnerable, well, right now the elderly and the poor and disadvantaged and indigenous, I mean, there are populations, subpopulations, but the elderly and the elderly across those other diverse groups are without doubt a major group right now that we have to stand for and begin this kind of conversation both within the aging community and all of those who are in fact making policy, which is public policy is a, a reducibly moral endeavor

Host

The stories we tell about aging are never just stories they shape how we care for one another, the policies we create and the possibilities we imagine for ourselves and others. If we're going to expand the narrative on aging we need a way of thinking that's spacious enough to hold both its challenges and its gifts.[00:30:00] Connie Zweig captures that approach beautifully in her book, The Inner Work of Age. She wrote, "We have to talk about progress and decline, gain and diminishment, beginnings and endings and stretch ourselves to hold these opposites together in our awareness for ourselves and for the culture at large." Reconsidering aging in some ways means a radical acceptance of these opposing forces. It means as an older person agreeing to inhabit our own personal, often disorienting Venn diagram, where things are on one hand falling apart, and on another, coming together in ways that maybe weren't possible when we were younger. Pushing back against the limiting stories about aging may begin here in refusing simplistic narratives of decline or heroics in questioning [00:31:00] what we've been taught to expect of growing older and in staying curious about who we are and may yet become at every stage of life

We'd like to thank today's guests, Nuala Kenny, and the ‘sisters and the ladies’ who shared their thoughts about being older. You can learn more about Nuala Kenny's work by following the links in our show notes. Many thanks to our recording and production engineer at Mount Saint Vincent University, Keelan Black.  I'm Kelly O'Neil.

Thanks for being here! If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with others. Follow us, subscribe, and leave your comments.[00:32:00] 

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This podcast series was made possible through a generous grant from the Entente Foundation, supporting innovative projects that improve the lives of older adults.