Never paid much attention to birthdays or decades but this one seems important. I have benefitted from the discussions on this forum of issues regarding relevance and aging. Here are some thoughts of the day:
I cannot regret that which will never come again. No one will seek my consultancy on computer architectures. The head waiter at La Hacienda will never greet me by name and I will never request two bottles of Far Niente Chardonay on ice. We will never again drive ‘his and her’ Land Rovers to explore remote places. No celebrities will come to our B&B. Our home will not be on the Historic House tour at Christmas. Indeed we were fortunate that any of this happened at all. But none of it will come again. We are just the old couple that doesn’t get out much.
There is an elderly man who walks his dogs along our street. I know, because I have talked with him, that he is a retired Admiral. A man who commanded ships with thousands of men. He is robust but walks haltingly. The kids who swarm off of the school bus ignore him. He’s just some old guy with a couple of dogs.
So, what’s left that’s relevant? I care for my invalid wife, bake our bread and cook our meals, do the shopping and washing, stuff like that. It is apparent that, except for the kitchen, I don’t clean.
My first wife and youngest son have passed. The Land Rovers are long gone. We sold the B&B and moved on. Now, I believe I must create my own relevance. My fathers generation recorded their history in fifty years of letters. I have transcribed a family history from those that spans 1890 through the seventies. I’ve added my own that covers the 1930s through the present and I am working with a daughter and a grandson to ensure that the tradition will continue. Most of my grandchildren and great grandchildren regard this in the same light as the school bus kids regard the old man with the dogs. Hopefully it will become relevant as they approach my current age. The narrative is not a detailed memoir, but it does explain where we were and why, and some of what we did. It’s augmented by the extensive genealogy my first wife and eldest uncle researched over many years. If they want more they can mine the family letters and albums.
1890 to the present covers the century with the most amazing advances and opportunities in human history. The advances in communication, transportation, food production, mineral extraction, data management and medicines were all phenomenal. The pitiable regressions in US governance, health care, weapon safety, education, organized religions and policing are medieval at best. I am appalled. They did not do their jobs when I was doing mine.
Though I notice a mode of dying seems to be at 91 years, that’s not encouraging, but I may make the assault on 100. A clue will be if they replace the battery in my pacemaker. I asked
my doctor about some of my chronic ailments. Her answer:
“Look, I have people in their sixties who need a wheel chair to get into my office, you are nearly 90 and you bound in here like it was your first day on a new job, what can I tell you:”