Death and Relations Can be Painful

Musings on Old Age

I guess one of the rings we do not count on when we are young is getting old.  If we did we might all decide to try something different.  Getting old has come to mean a lot of things to me, but the most hurtful is death and the loss of love ones (family and friends).

At this very moment, there are several family members and friends that are visibly struggling to stay alive.  My cousin in Georgia; my sister-in-law in North Carolina; one of my best friends in Maryland, and that is just the tip of the ice burg. 

When you are young you fight to keep your teeth.  Whiteners, brightens, and frequent visits to the dentist.  We believe that we are invincible.  We take chances and risks.  We know everything,  No stopping us, and no time for rest or practicing good healthy habits.  We will try any thing.

We do not see age creeping us on us.  We just wake up one day and learn or accept that we are not young any more.  Our hair starts thinning.  We lose our teeth.  Bunions start hurting and special shoes are required.  Our health becomes an issue.  the retirement saving we had starts dwindling and used for  everything but retirement.  Those big baby blues or browns or blacks start changing and even your heart start becoming a concern.  Old age creeps on without even mumbling a single warning.  It is a surprise.  Who knew!

The hiccup, however, is not that all of this happens to you alone.  It also happens to everyone around you that survives death.  Suddenly you receive your membership card to old age, your medicare card.  Some of us need it, and some of us do not, but all of us cross an invisible barrier that separates us from the young.

Our separation from the young signals the loss of friends, love ones, and even enemies.  We start looking at the time we have left on earth.  Something in our psychic registers our limited time left, and we are now wide awake to all of the possibilities that we have left.  We want to spend more time with our children, if we have any.  Traveling becomes a new hobby.  Writing becomes a passion.  Somehow we want to leave a little bit about us behind.

Life becomes our most precious asset.  We cling to it with a passion.  We will spend our lat dime preserving our health and our quality of life, whatever it is, and for as long as we can.   

Reality of old age is that the young becomes the old, and the old becomes those that were replaced by the young, 

The completion of a cycle that starts at birth.