I am older than I have ever been (04/21/2024)

I am 70 years old, going on 71, the oldest I have ever been, at least when you do not believe in reincarnation. Otherwise in a previous life I could have been a turtle, elephant or some other creature that outlives humans. That is of course also assuming that these animals did not meet an untimely death as the result of poachers or worse some millionaire schmuck who killed me on safari.

Crap, I am not getting any younger, just older and older, but as the cliché goes, “it beats the alternative.” A lot of elderly like me joke about it, like “hey, I woke up this morning, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” or “I checked the obituaries this morning and I wasn't in it.” But seriously, I am at the point that the obituaries of celebrities are my favorite part in the newspaper. I want to see how old they were when they died and what the cause was of their demise.

Our church has what are called fellowship circles, where a group of six to eight folks get together and exchange their feeling over a specific topic. It is meant to be personal and a way of getting to know each other a bit better and create friendships. Since it is a Unitarian Church, the character of God is never brought up; we don’t pray or talk about religion, maybe with the exception of bashing it. Believers in God, Christ, Allah, Buddha, humanists and even atheists are all welcome in the Unitarian Church.

My circle is held in the afternoon and as a logical result it consists of retired folks, everyone is in their late sixties and seventies. The topic of the day this past week was spring and reawakening of nature after the winter torpor. Maybe not surprising, but when my wife asked me when I got home how the meeting was, my answer was that we discussed old age, mortality, and our anxiety about getting older. It was somewhat amazing how we got there, but it seems that I am not the only one struggling with the impending decline. Now here they say that human bonds, friendships and fellowship are the prerequisite to living longer. I hope that talking about death contributes to aging gracefully and gives us a few more extra quality years.

This week we also met a neighbor of ours at a party at one of our local breweries. We had not seen her in some time, and she let us know why. Her husband, a retired NASA scientist was diagnosed of coming down with Alzheimer. He is in his mid-70s and they have been at neurologists trying to find a way of slowing down the decline. Another (male) friend was there and he told me he has osteoporosis. He is 75 years-old, very skinny and a retired NASA scientist. I read somewhere that the 70-ies are supposed to be the “go-go” years, the 80-ies the “slow-go” years, while at your 90th birthday you enter the “no-go” decade. I better get going, I've got nine more years of fun ahead of me.

This old man and his wife!