Many people cringe at the thought of growing old. I, myself, used to flinch every time I passed into any new decade beyond 30. I just couldn’t believe it…why, I still felt like a boy. But it never weighed heavily on me as it does on some. And by the time I passed 50, wow, that’s what I always called old. But you know, after I once realized that I was now considered old, and when cashiers asked if I was a senior citizen, it began to feel normal and when I zipped past 75, it didn’t bother me as much as it seemed to at 35! So it is a frame of mind more than anything else.
Acceptance is the proper word. You begin to know that the things you wanted to but haven’t yet accomplished, are past and gone. So don’t worry about them. I guess that is the meaning of the old cliché, “Don’t ever look back.” You learn to accept the aging process and you know that, statistically, you don’t have much further to go. But, you realize also, even that is alright. You knew it was coming from the time you were about 6 years old, and so now it’s near. One is very blessed to even reach the average life span point. Many thousands died younger than that to cause it to be the average.
We’ve all heard the old joke that when you reach my age, we read the obituaries each morning to see if we are listed, and if not, we eat breakfast and begin another day. But to tell you a real story, I built a website for a funeral home recently and I am beginning to think maybe I shouldn't have. Because I watch it carefully to make sure everything I did is working out alright. But I’ve discovered that the fellow buries, with few exceptions, old men in their late 70’s! The last two before this writing were 79 and 78, in that order. I’m 77 so it makes me wonder if he has some type of spell that he casts on us older guys. I don’t know the exact average life span right now for Caucasian males, but I think I have just slipped past it.
They tell me it is fun to grow old and become infested with senility, or maybe Alzheimer’s disease in that you are able to meet new friends every day, hear new jokes, and so on. That may be true, but I just don’t remember. Some good points are that people expect you to do weird things so you can readily get away with a lot, like for instance, pulling out in front of traffic. Young people expect us to do that and so they graciously allow it. They only yell out as us to keep us on our toes. It has helped me get home earlier a lot of times. My only fear of that is that I don’t see as well as I once did, so I pray that I won’t mistake some old codger for a young guy and swing out in front of him. I do try to pick out very late model cars, because I trust their brakes.
(52 years and counting)
You learn to accept your mistakes which are many. I only fear that I may inadvertently run off with some other woman sometime and I hate to do that because this girl I have here now is a good person and I’m not sure she would buy that. And I would also lose the benefit of her social security check. I almost did that a few weeks back. We went shopping for a few items and my wife has never been a shopper (chuckle, snort) so I went in and made the purchases while she waited in the car. When I came out, I walked over and opened the driver’s door to find a strange woman in the passenger seat staring wild eyed at me. I said, “Whoa, what are you doing here and where is my wife?” and she replied, sounding somewhat frightened and about to cry, “I’m here because this is our car and I don’t have a clue where your wife is.” I backed up, looked around and sure enough, my wife was in the next row leaning out a window and waving frantically at me.
Almost the same thing happened to me a few weeks farther back. We stopped on the street for me to pick up a couple of items at a grocery store, parallel parked. When I came out of the grocery store and walked around the front end of my car I noticed that the tires were worn almost to the fabric in spots. I kicked the front tire and looked at the back one to find it in the same condition. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. These were 60,000 mile tires and I had only had them a few months. Man! Then I looked up at the car behind me and there she was again, waving through the front windshield, and laughing hysterically. She never believes me when I tell her I only do these things to give her a laugh.
But it is the medications and toiletries that worry me. A simple mistake with some of them could be serious. And we keep much of our medications and toiletries together in a bathroom cabinet. And I frequently make errors with some of them, but so far none of much consequence. Actually, we don’t have many of our actual medications there, only tubes, ointments, etc. But even they can get you in trouble if you don’t watch. I recall several years ago, before senility had set in, that I had a stuffy nose and sprayed my nose with Pearl Drops…both nostrils. And perhaps the most embarrassing thing I have done was the time I dressed my hemorrhoids with Polygrip. And I haven’t yet figured out what it was that I pasted my dentures down with that day.
Such things are only mistakes and probably have nothing to do with Alzheimer’s. But I also forget very quickly at times and that could be symptoms of something, forgetfulness perhaps.
But awhile back, my wife found me wandering around in the field out back with a rope in my hands and yelled at me as to what I was doing. And I answered that I was not sure, but I thought that I had either found a rope or lost a horse. And then just the other day, I stumbled and fell down the two steps into our dining room, jumped back up and yelled, “What was that noise?”
It can cause embarrassing moments also. I know we had a visitor at church recently and wanting to be a good host, I walked up and said, “We’re glad to have you visit us, my name is Joel Hendon.” He turned his ear toward me and said, “I’m sorry.” and I said kindly indignantly, “For what?” Then he said, “ I didn’t understand the name you just said.” And I said, “Well, it’s too late, I don’t remember who we were talking about.”
I also have weird dreams now. One that is recurring is a good one. Right now, if I ran 4 steps, I’d be gasping for breath, but in this dream, I can start running and seemingly with the ease of a gazelle or a naked man on the moon. I only touch the ground about every 10 yards and just with little effort spring another 10, on and on. Now this paragraph is totally true, not all of the other yarns are, but I’ll let you figure out which ones aren’t.
I try to laugh as much as possible but even so, lines have formed from the corners of my mouth downward making it appear that I am a grouchy old man. I refuse to use botox.
