One benefit of growing old, I was reminded in an e-mail, is that people no longer accuse you of being a hypochondriac. It’s true. Along the farther reaches of life’s path, things do go wrong. Body parts become infected, wear out, break down, or even worse. The joke about the epitaph, “I told you I was sick!” carved in a man’s headstone is based on fact. The older you get, the more often you can say, “I told you so.” Trouble is, when those chances come you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
A friend at work, whose parents were blessed with abundant siblings, says he always needs to have handy a clean black suit. Another friend, John, retired due to health issues at fifty-eight. He had undergone multiple back surgeries, had both knees and one shoulder replaced, and new lenses installed in both his eyes. John is running out of O.E.M. parts. When he had a stint installed following his heart attack, I told him if all those things had gone wrong at one time, the doctors would simply have totaled him out. And that’s another reason why it’s better to be a human than a Honda Accord.
My military discharge physical noted an “acute loss of hearing in the 5,000 range.” My wife will tell you that range has widened dramatically in both directions ever since my discharge. Reminds me of the man who bragged to a friend about his new, state of the art hearing aid.
“Sounds great,” says the friend, “What kind is it?”
“Twelve thirty,” the deaf guy says.
I was in my thirties during college at UT Nashville. Every few quarters, when I found myself moving steadily towards the front of class, I’d get new glasses. Now, my no-glare, scratch-resistant, UV blocker, super-thin hardened polymer lenses would stop a .22 round. As time goes on, more of my teeth are encased in crowns. Because of that, last year, my mouth became more valuable than my car.
My left knee proved a problem when I started running at age 33. Only sporadic pain at first, but arthritis slowed me to a walk after 25 years. Awhile back, I stopped doing bench presses to relieve pain in my right shoulder. The elbow thing comes and goes, my right thumb is only a problem when it rains, but my lower back is almost like new, this week.
In 1988, nodules developed on my thyroid and I surrendered that gland to radioactive iodine. Didn’t need it anyway; they have pills for that. High cholesterol added Zocor to my medicine cabinet. When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2002, I e-mailed my family that, given the choice, I’d rather have had cancer of the appendix. I opted for surgery and I’m still here.
About half-past my fifties, I began to notice in church a dignified, gray haired woman, always kneeling near the front. She looked somehow familiar. Over time, I decided she might be the mother of an old classmate I hadn’t seen since 1962. The resemblance was definitely there. Months later, in one of those rare moments of crisp mental clarity, I realized that if anything, this would be my classmate herself. But it wasn’t.
A few years later, I was included in a group asked to contact people for a fundraiser. Gathered together, we were provided a list of names, so that we might start by calling people we actually knew. I spotted the name of a girl from grade school. “I’ll call this woman,” I volunteered. “I know her from way back.” From the opposite side of the room, an old woman called out, “You don’t have to call me,” she said, “I’m taken care of.” Thus I was reminded of the silver lining of creeping senility: you are unaware of it.
At some point, you notice that those grizzled, NFL veterans, limping their way towards that last huddle, are younger than your children. Still – due perhaps to geriatric delusion – you don’t feel old, most of the time. You ran for 25 years and you’re still hitting the streets and greenways and treadmills and weight machines. You’re still working your biceps, triceps, quadriceps – sometimes even abs. But you see where you’re headed; the staff members at the Y keep asking you to join Silver Sneakers. You think of those young treadmill sweat hogs around you as whippersnappers, but you’d never utter the actual word, because the only person you ever heard use it was Gabby Hayes and he must have been 80 when he was born. You want to go online to SgtGrits.com and order one of those Marine Corps T shirts you meant to get last year, but forgot. It’s the one that says, “The older we get, the better we were.” Ah, yet another benefit of growing old: acute selective memory.
Signs of old age are everywhere, even if you’re not paying attention. Something always hurts, and your doctor is just a kid. Undesirable spots appear on your skin. Things sag. Hair falls out where you want it and starts growing where you don’t. Eventually, you’re offended by the term, silverback. All that unwanted hair. It’s even growing out of your ears. Huh, maybe that’s what’s wrong with your hearing.
End