Touchy Subject of Getting Old (And At Some Point Dying)
Dear Nicholas, I have reached The Age of Others Keeling Over. People keep getting old, falling ill, some actually dying. This sort of thing has happened before, but in my earlier years it was an aberration, cases of dying too young.
I saw this exit-watching process happen to my mother. She was 56 when my father died.
Three months later her mother died.
And then friend after friend, and she had the misfortune of having an enormous number. Once she went out of town for a week and when she came back she found on the kitchen table the obits of three friends, placed there by brother Franc with a vase of flowers.
It didn’t stop. Her father died. Her younger sister died. Children of friends started to go. I didn’t see how she could stand it.
Keeping On
But she still kept on–until age 96. That’s when we lost her. I have a feeling I have a lot of her longevity genes. If I’m right, I’ll likely have, for many more years, a similar experience of getting old. (My favorite parent picture)
It was quite a while back when I began to notice in the paper the obits of the ruling generation I covered as a young newspaper reporter in Raleigh. That generation was at least twenty years older than me and and they had begun to make their exit.
More recently I learned that the dear neighborhood pal of my earliest childhood had died. That’s her on the left. She was two years younger than that sophisticate on the right. We were a couple of little fashionistas, as you can see.
This “exit” business comes as a shock, never mind that we all know it’s inevitable.
Precarious?
Years ago, a book review in The New York Times said my novel Sister India showed me to be “a writer with a keen sense of the precariousness of our lives….” That surprised me. It’s true that the novel is set in the Hindu holy city on the Ganges considered the most auspicious place to die. Still, I didn’t think I was writing about precariousness of life or that I had any such sense.
Now I’m starting to acquire it, which shows in my work.
My most recent novel, My Life On Earth And Elsewhere is a story of The Big Mysteries, of life before life, life after death, of nearby and ever-present spirit worlds. Call it fantasy–or spiritual exploration, or wishful thinking, or faith. In any case, it shows me that now the precariousness of life is indeed on my mind.
The sharpened awareness of mortality does, of course, add a sharper edge to appreciation for being alive, for my loved ones who are living. And so far, I’ve been lucky. Several of my people have survived serious close calls. Both those situations are likely at some point to change.
The Hot Roller Cure
Unless, of course, technology (in the form of medical innovation) comes to the rescue, as I foolishly trust it will. The arrival of hot rollers in my life back in the early 60s first gave me this confidence. I’d begun in my very early teens to have serious concern about whether I’d ever be able to get married, since it was absolutely necessary for me to sleep in pink foam rubber curlers. I couldn’t let anyone outside my family of origin see me with my hair rolled up.
Then came hot rollers, which did the job in a few minutes in the morning. The problem was solved.
In fact, medical technology has already saved the day for me. What happened to my mother more than forty years ago — losing her husband and mother three months apart — would have happened to me when I was 68 but for good luck and good medical treatment. Bob had his very close call with his heart then in December, Mom in late February. Both got updated medical treatment and survived.
At some point, though, I’m likely to discover — in a gut way — that I and quite a few others are going to die.
Closer to Life?
Some years ago, I was discussing with my psychologist husband the situation of a man who was losing his wife to cancer. Going through that, Bob said, can bring a person “closer to life.” I saved that perplexing phrase for later consideration, no doubt knowing that at some point it could come in handy.
It’s paradoxical of course to think that facing death brings you closer to life. How can you get closer to life than being alive?
The Deep Stuff
What makes that greater closeness, I now discover, is coming to know more intimately the most profound experiences of being physically and emotionally alive. Living close to the brink of death will do that. I suspect anyone who has a child gets an early dose of that immediacy.
But in the course of daily routines — work, errands, getting things done– it’s probably pretty easy for anyone to lose awareness of the deep stuff. The raw emotion, the pulsing messy heated bodily life. The precariousness.
Our forgetting that ever-present precariousness–and then the shock of remembering again–are both no doubt necessary. Who could stand a constant awareness? At the same time, it’s likely impossible to live the fullest life without sometimes feeling how close we live to the edge.
I’m still pondering this. Likely I will as long as I live.
Peggy
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: close call . going to die, closer to life, dying too young, emotionally alive, facing death, father died, fullest life, good medical treatment, life after death, life before life, longevity genes, most auspicious place to die, mother died, precariousness of life, precariousness of our lives, raw emotion, spiritual exploration