New Old Age

Harry Oxman’s bar mitzvah at the Society Hill Synagogue in Philadelphia looked much like the traditional Saturday morning event. He recited the customary prayers before and after the Torah reading. He discussed the meaning of the day’s Torah portion. He carried the sacred scrolls in a procession around the sanctuary. The rabbi offered a blessing; the congregation yelled a congratulatory “Mazel tov!” and tossed pieces of candy to symbolize the sweetness of the days ahead. Lunch followed, with toasts from family members.

The difference was that the celebration, a tradition that normally marks Jewish adulthood for 13-year-olds, occurred in 2019, when Mr. Oxman was 83. Because the 90th Psalm says that age 70 represents a full life span, some congregations offer this rite of passage — often for the second time — to those turning 83.

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Lynne Ingersoll and her cat, Jesse, spent a quiet Thanksgiving Day together in her small bungalow in Blue Island, Ill.A retired librarian, Ms. Ingersoll never married or had children. At 77, she has outlived her parents, three partners, her two closest friends, five dogs and eight cats.

When her sister died three years ago, Ms. Ingersoll joined the ranks of older Americans considered “kinless”: without partners or spouses, children or siblings. Covid-19 has largely suspended her occasional get-togethers with friends, too. Now, she said, “my social life consists of doctors and store clerks — that’s a joke, but it’s pretty much true.”

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About a decade ago, Andrea Clay went online to read about newly revised guidelines on cervical cancer screening.None of her health care providers had mentioned that women over age 65 who were at average risk for cervical cancer could stop getting Pap tests if they had been adequately screened until then.

But that’s what the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommended, Ms. Clay learned, along with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Cancer Society.

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Forty-five years ago, Betty Szudy and her wife, Maggie Roth, both 70, bought a Craftsman bungalow in Oakland, Calif. In 2017, at the same time their son and his wife were fruitlessly searching for an affordable apartment in the neighborhood, California was liberalizing its housing laws to encourage so-called accessory dwelling units, or A.D.U.s.

So, the family looked into building one. The parents now live in the main house and the adult children in the A.D.U. — in this case, a once-decrepit garage transformed into a 400-square-foot studio with a kitchen and bath. The arrangement makes it simple to share meals, planned or spontaneous, and to pick up items for the other household at Trader Joe’s. “I love having them around,” Ms. Szudy said.

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Denise Revel had a history of developing blood clots, so in 2011, when her leg grew painfully swollen and hot to the touch, she knew what to do. She headed for the emergency room.

She recovered from the clot but could not pay the medical bill. Working as a fitness instructor, she had no health insurance. “I’ve always been financially challenged,” said Ms. Revel, 62, who lives with her daughter in Stockbridge, Ga. “I was a single parent raising two children.”

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Each fall, Becca Levy asks the students in her health and aging class at the Yale School of Public Health to picture an old person and share the first five words that come to mind. Don’t think too much, she tells them.

She writes their responses on the board. These include admiring words like “wisdom” and “creative” and roles such as “grandmother.” But “‘senility’ comes up a lot,” Dr. Levy said recently, “and a lot of physical infirmity and decline: ‘stooped over,’ ‘sick,’ ‘decrepit.’”

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