"Aging"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Essays from Essex

“Aging”

May 21, 2022

 

“This is what youth must figure out:

Girls, love, and living.

The having, the not having,

The spending and giving,

And the melancholy time of not knowing.

 

This is what age must learn about:

The ABC of dying.

The going, yet not going,

The loving and leaving,

And the unbearable knowing and knowing.”

                                                                                                                                              E.B. White (1899-1985)

                                                                                                                                              “Youth and Age”

                                                                                                                                              Poems & Sketches of E.B. White, 1981

 

We are born; we grow up, and we die. In a nutshell, that is aging. In truth, however, aging is much more. Aging takes us from a time where everything is new – people, things, experiences – when joy is in the anticipation and when the future stretches toward infinity and unknowns are exciting, to a time when we recognize life is finite, when joy is found in memories and experiences, and when, with apprehension, we look toward unknowns. Where are we headed? Will those I leave behind fare well?  

 

We age differently. Some become old betimes, others age gracefully and pain free. For a few, old age is lonely, a period of quiet despair. For others, it is a time of creativity and of giving back. Plato, who lived to be about eighty, thought aging natural and therefore good. His student Aristotle, who died at sixty-two, denounced old men as miserly and loquacious. In a some ways, however, we age similarly. Bones become brittle and our skin wrinkles. Hair thins or turns white. We forget where we left the keys, or the name of the person with whom we dined yesterday. Doctors’ visits become more frequent, and our pill intake increases. Almost fifty years ago an older client told me that a man spends the first half of his life making money and the second half making water. I now understand what he was saying.

 

There is a tendency, as we get older, to favor the past over the present. Michel de Montaigne, the 16^th Century French essayist, wrote: “Every period of life has its peculiar prejudices; whoever saw old age that did not applaud the past and condemn the present times?” In truth, age gives us perspective – there is good and bad in the past and in the present.

 

Two photographs – one of Caroline and me leaving the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York on a Saturday afternoon in April 1964; a second is of the two of us following renewal of our wedding vows in April 2014 – a 50^th anniversary celebration, performed at the insistence of our grandchildren who, oddly, missed the original event! With us in the second photo are our three children, their spouses and ten grandchildren, the latter dressed as bridesmaids and ushers. So, while the population of the U.S. increased 66% from 192 million to 318 million between 1964 and 2014, our family increased 900% from two to eighteen. Granted, there is some double counting because of in-laws. Nevertheless, I am happy to have helped give life to so many.

 

I look at my grandchildren and remember myself at their age and wonder: Would we have been friends? It seems such a short time ago, but so much has transpired in the intervening decades – in the world, in our nation, in my life. We long for simpler times. We empathize with the siren call of Elizabeth Akers Allen’s 1859 poem, “Rock Me to Sleep:”

 

“Backward turn backward, oh time in thy flight.

Make me a child again just for tonight.”

 

But there is no turning back. Nor should there be. So long as there is breath in our lungs, life in our limbs and reason in our brains, we should look ahead, enjoy what time we have, and do what we can to make life bearable for those who follow. As a friend once said: “In life, it is not the destination that counts, but the trip.” That does not mean ignoring history, for we are molded by the past, and mementos in the form of photographs, books, pictures and objects remind us of earlier years. They allow us to see life as a continuum, that we are part of a never-ending production line. Just as we were fashioned by those who came before us, we help shape those who come later. Life is not static; it is in constant flux. Man is a creative animal, so as standards of living change so do the standards by which we live; though the moral code embedded in the Ten Commandments is eternal. While we become more judgmental as we get older, that reflects our recognition that evil exists and is in competition with good; age helps us distinguish between the two

 

 

For me, old age has provided the opportunity to relax, to spend time with family and friends, to read and to write of issues that confront our times. I realize, as one does when old age creeps up, how short is our time, and that we owe it to ourselves to make the most of the time we have. I am thankful to be alive at this moment and to be able to record my opinions and reactions. I have been blessed in the family in which I was born and raised, in my wife, my children, my grandchildren and in my friends. 

 

As for age, I say bring it on!