Sr. Norma Virginia Allen Brown shares her experience with the elderly. “By accompanying them, I continue to feel like a woman and a missionary, despite my advanced age.”

I am the first Comboni missionary of African origin in Costa Rica. For over a year, I have been participating in the pastoral care of the elderly in the parish of Granadilla, in San José, where I share my 17 years of missionary experience in Uganda.

As an elderly woman, after almost 40 years of consecrated life, I see my missionary life differently. I am aware of the decline in physical strength, the pain, and all the changes that advanced age brings. In this, we are all the same, and I see how my being and my missionary experience are gradually transforming. The expression “in old age they will continue to bear fruit” from Psalm 92 tells us that age does not take away our womanhood; our chromosomes are “XX” until death.

Thanks to my femininity, I have been able to transmit Christ to my brothers and sisters who do not yet know him. Age does not matter, because the responsibility is the same. The group of elderly women I work with have “adopted” a poor woman who is not elderly; She has given meaning to their lives. Sharing with them, I realise how different care for the elderly is here, in my country, compared to Uganda.

There, the elder plays a very important role within the clan or ethnic group to which she belongs. In Africa, a woman is considered elderly at 45, as the hard work she does in the fields ages her very quickly. She begins to procreate very young, immediately after her first menstruation, which for her is the most wonderful thing that could happen to her. Conceiving and giving birth to a new life makes her feel like a woman, a gift from God that not all women receive.

For her, breasts are used to breastfeed children; they are not seen as a means of sexual attraction and are respected by men. As the years pass, women acquire a wisdom that comes from real experience, not from books, and that enables them to teach the new generations. Elderly women bear witness to what they have experienced, which is why it is important to listen to their teachings.

I, too was enriched by living with elderly women during my first years as a consecrated woman, when I was sent to Italy to care for our elderly sisters. They enriched me with their vast and profound experience in the mission, as well as by the time they offered their sufferings for the people with whom they lived and worked for many years. Here in Costa Rica, care for the elderly is regulated by law. Elderly people have many rights and enjoy preferential positions in healthcare and other areas of society, including transportation benefits, pensions, and so on.

 However, greater awareness is needed among family members so that they don’t abandon them in hospitals or hostels, especially during vacation time. Some women tell me they live alone and are often accepted only as babysitters for their grandchildren. Out of love, they look after their grandchildren. There are other cases of women and men who are very well cared for in every way: they receive family, emotional, and psychological support, as well as healthcare and financial support. Accompanying them, I continue to feel like a woman and a missionary, despite my advanced age.