Copyright © 2018
By Ralph F. Couey
I have heard that while aging is inevitable, being old is a matter of choice. It is an aphorism rooted in a perhaps stubborn way of declaring that one won't willingly give in to the dark side of passing years. But for all the courage inferred, it may also be a bit of useless arrogance.
This has been on my mind since the death of my father some 14 years ago. He was for my entire life a man of immense dignity and intelligence; one whose commitment to matters moral, ethical, and spiritual made an indelible impression on me, and frankly dwarfs anyone else I've ever known. But the last two years of his life was a time of heartache for me. His once-prodigious memory was rapidly fading. He knew us, but not much beyond that. Physically, his decline was rapid, to the point where a simple trip to the bathroom involved a small portable crane device. It's hard to assess how aware he was of these things happening to him, but it's possible that his decline in mental faculties was in fact a small blessing.
Cheryl's mom is approaching 92 years old, and stubborn as the day is long. She is also having memory problems, mainly involving the humorous aspects of "where did I put that thing?" She had insisted on continuing to drive until the first week we were here. She was out doing errands when she got confused, made a wrong turn, and when trying to correct her routing, cut a turn way short and gently nosed into another vehicle waiting at a stop sign. As accidents go, it was minor -- the airbags did not deploy on either vehicle -- but the incident was enough to put enough fear into her to willingly give up her keys. Her car is repaired and back in the carport, but still she occasionally makes noise about driving again.
We have a responsibility to keep her from behind the wheel, but she is stubborn personified, and I know there's going to be a day when she just might talk herself into driving somewhere. We have collected nearly all of the car keys, but there is still one set missing.
We love her dearly, and it is for her own protection that we have to do this. But I understand, better than she realizes, what it means to surrender her independence piece by piece. I know my memory is beginning to be a struggle, and I know it is inevitable that one day I, too, will have to give up my keys. In one respect, I dislike getting to this age because I can now clearly see the pace and path of my deterioration. Unlike Mom, I have had a host of health problems such as diabetes, heart disease, and the early signs of arthritis. I won't make 92. I might make 80 and while that is 17 years yet to come, I know how quickly the last seventeen flashed by. Isaac Asimov wrote, "Life is pleasant; death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."
I don't fear death. Thanks to a powerful experience coinciding with the placement of my first stent, I know what awaits me across that great last divide, and when the time comes I will head that way with absolutely no fear and more importantly, no regrets. But what scares me is the span of time from now to then. I know helpless, hopeless, mindless seniors existing in a kind of non-existential fog; their bodies unable to help them stand or walk, or even attend to basic human plumbing needs.
Let me be frank: I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to see the hurt looks on the faces of my grandkids when they realize that Grampa doesn't recognize them anymore. I don't want to be helpless, and I don't want to become a burden either to my family or the employees of some care facility. I want to be me as long as I possibly can, and then depart this life with the sudden finality of a light switch.
But really, I do know this is not about what I want; it's about what will be. And to quote Harry Chapin, "How I'd love to find I had that kind of choice again." If I survive that long, the day will come when I will be helpless and possibly mindless. That I won't know or even be aware of my situation is of no solace.
Despite the inevitable, I still have several years of life left, maybe, just maybe I'll live long enough to see the Kansas City Chiefs in the Superbowl once again.
Like I said, maybe.
But life, in the final analysis, is time to be, time to do, and opportunity to accomplish. I will do my best to live and enjoy the life I have left, and the brain and body that remains. It is not my time to waste. It is the final gift, one that I will tear open with great impatience.
All I ask, really, is a good time and an empty bucket list.
This has been on my mind since the death of my father some 14 years ago. He was for my entire life a man of immense dignity and intelligence; one whose commitment to matters moral, ethical, and spiritual made an indelible impression on me, and frankly dwarfs anyone else I've ever known. But the last two years of his life was a time of heartache for me. His once-prodigious memory was rapidly fading. He knew us, but not much beyond that. Physically, his decline was rapid, to the point where a simple trip to the bathroom involved a small portable crane device. It's hard to assess how aware he was of these things happening to him, but it's possible that his decline in mental faculties was in fact a small blessing.
Cheryl's mom is approaching 92 years old, and stubborn as the day is long. She is also having memory problems, mainly involving the humorous aspects of "where did I put that thing?" She had insisted on continuing to drive until the first week we were here. She was out doing errands when she got confused, made a wrong turn, and when trying to correct her routing, cut a turn way short and gently nosed into another vehicle waiting at a stop sign. As accidents go, it was minor -- the airbags did not deploy on either vehicle -- but the incident was enough to put enough fear into her to willingly give up her keys. Her car is repaired and back in the carport, but still she occasionally makes noise about driving again.
We have a responsibility to keep her from behind the wheel, but she is stubborn personified, and I know there's going to be a day when she just might talk herself into driving somewhere. We have collected nearly all of the car keys, but there is still one set missing.
We love her dearly, and it is for her own protection that we have to do this. But I understand, better than she realizes, what it means to surrender her independence piece by piece. I know my memory is beginning to be a struggle, and I know it is inevitable that one day I, too, will have to give up my keys. In one respect, I dislike getting to this age because I can now clearly see the pace and path of my deterioration. Unlike Mom, I have had a host of health problems such as diabetes, heart disease, and the early signs of arthritis. I won't make 92. I might make 80 and while that is 17 years yet to come, I know how quickly the last seventeen flashed by. Isaac Asimov wrote, "Life is pleasant; death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."
I don't fear death. Thanks to a powerful experience coinciding with the placement of my first stent, I know what awaits me across that great last divide, and when the time comes I will head that way with absolutely no fear and more importantly, no regrets. But what scares me is the span of time from now to then. I know helpless, hopeless, mindless seniors existing in a kind of non-existential fog; their bodies unable to help them stand or walk, or even attend to basic human plumbing needs.
Let me be frank: I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to see the hurt looks on the faces of my grandkids when they realize that Grampa doesn't recognize them anymore. I don't want to be helpless, and I don't want to become a burden either to my family or the employees of some care facility. I want to be me as long as I possibly can, and then depart this life with the sudden finality of a light switch.
But really, I do know this is not about what I want; it's about what will be. And to quote Harry Chapin, "How I'd love to find I had that kind of choice again." If I survive that long, the day will come when I will be helpless and possibly mindless. That I won't know or even be aware of my situation is of no solace.
Despite the inevitable, I still have several years of life left, maybe, just maybe I'll live long enough to see the Kansas City Chiefs in the Superbowl once again.
Like I said, maybe.
But life, in the final analysis, is time to be, time to do, and opportunity to accomplish. I will do my best to live and enjoy the life I have left, and the brain and body that remains. It is not my time to waste. It is the final gift, one that I will tear open with great impatience.
All I ask, really, is a good time and an empty bucket list.
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