Time to think about aging. This may take a while….
First of a Few Parts
I AM GETTING old. No doubt about it.
I say that as part of a ritual of acceptance. As I look ahead to turning 79 in September, it’s pretty hard to deny that I am getting old, and older by the day.
Please don’t be one of those who says you are only as young as you feel or think, that there are 100-year-olds walking marathons. Don’t care, don’t want to hear it. This is, after all, all about me.
I have been contemplating this acceptance for a while now and a few days ago John Wilson, a Facebook friend who has experienced with his late wife what I am experiencing with Connie and dementia, penned a piece about aging that made me think “damn, John, and here I thought I was special.”
In his two-part look at this phase of life we are in, John said among other thing:
“I’m preparing to be gone. Not in a purposeful, short-term way, of course, because I still have things I want to do, and there are still things I like to do. But I’m gradually becoming less visible, partly of my own making and partly because no one is looking except to wonder why I’m driving so slow or why I dress like I dress. I’m elderly. No longer a thing of promise or potential…..
“In this time of my disappearing, my aging, my eventual demise, I am not unhappy, depressed nor otherwise distressed. In fact, as I have been through all my other phases, my childhood moves, my sojourn in the Navy, my trip through higher education, marriage, children, and various career changes, I am excited for the opportunity.”
I’m putting a link to John’s blog at the end of this piece.
I DON’T KNOW that I can sum up my feelings much better than John did, but we all face the same things a bit differently.
I do share John’s feeling that I am not being pessimistic, not trying to make you think I have thrown in the towel and am planning to just let myself die. Not yet. I am not saddened by the acceptance that things are winding down. I think most older folks have that moment where they realize their 16-year-old mind is giving them memories and not direction.
I remember back to my grandfather. A few months before he died he want my mother and I do drive him around the county. We went to a couple of farms, one where he had grown up, one where he had lived close to town and where my mother was born. He built the barn on that farm and at the time we took our tour, he was almost blind. But he got out of the car and slowly walked to the old barn and stroked pieces of wood and remembered.
I realized later we were taking him on a farewell tour. He knew the end was coming and he wanted to see the old places one more time. I think he was satisfied with what he found.
He was in a nursing home in an old house next to the funeral parlor. He got sick and they called the ambulance. Back in those days the funeral director provided the ambulance service. No EMTs, no equipment to speak of. It was just a red and white hearse instead of black. The funeral director was a friend. When he wheeled by grandfather out, he looked at the red and white hearse and said “Doug, you brought the wrong wagon.” He died that night, peacefully and knowing it was his time.
So, for a bit I will think out loud about this part of life….mostly with a smile…
https://www.gatewoodpress.com/blog
Rich Heiland is a retired journalist and semi-retired consultant, trainer and public speaker. During his journalism career he was a reporter, editor, publisher, college instructor, part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team and a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year honoree. He also writes the intodementia.com blog about his family’s experience with dementia. He lives in West Chester, PA and can be reached at [email protected].