The Hard Part of Growing Old Is Growing Dim
A missed date, a dark thought, and a way forward
I forgot a birthday.
Whose isn’t my focus here. A date as central to my consciousness as Christmas, 11/22/63, Nine-Eleven, November Fifth, 2024, my own birthday. One of those dates we remember because our world changed.
I woke to my mistake a week later, appalled. How could I! An unintended injury – yikes – I am not to blame! Hamlet helps, as he often does. “Give me your pardon,” he pleads,
I have done you wrong; But pardon't, as you are a gentleman… What I have done, That might your nature, honour and exception Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet: If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away, And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes, Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it. Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd…
Fine words, few finer, but they don’t cut it with Laertes – or me on this occasion. I check my calendar. What was I doing that day? Nothing special. Was I sick? No. Preoccupied? Well, yes, with our nation’s erasure, but that’s every day. I had no excuse except… the most ominous. A memory lapse due to (deep breath, Carll) age. Maybe not dementia – but evidence of a glide thither. Darkness falls – I pray my wit won’t predecease my pulse – but that’s not my choice. Double yikes.
Words are my balm for horror. Composing composes me, relocating me to a timeless zone where all may yet be well and beauty, not time, presides. If I can make of my malady a melody, grief turns gift.
Modern science has extended longevity beyond the dreams of antiquity. All honor is due. The sad downside of senescence is senility. Living isn’t breathing; it’s seeing, knowing, loving, rejoicing. Without these, existence is a bore, ordeal, burden and wasteful expense.
I forget more and more. My complaint is universal and, my good doctor assures me, age-appropriate. I ace my cognition test (just like the Nameless One, we’re told). Names and dates are early casualties of this deterioration. I am not sick – yet – but one day may be. Invisibly, body parts contend for which will be my slayer. My mind is in contention. How to think about this, wrap my mind around loss of mind?
Some shrug: what will be will be. Dog-pal Henry would urge such an amiable approach if he foresaw the future, which he doesn’t. Why kick against pricks, why fight City Hall? – relax, bro, go with the flow.
I would if I could but no dice.
For me life is a big deal, my extravagant fortune, and it’s my absolute obligation, my bounden duty, to make the most of it. That I fail to – constantly, in countless ways – does not relieve me of the responsibility to try. I don’t know what I’m capable of but my goal is the most.
Losing my mind is my monstrous dread. Having begged pardon for my amnesia, I snapped open my laptop and started typing with a fierce resolve. I cannot repair the past but maybe I can adorn tomorrow. No decent God asks more of us than our all.
And peace descends – as gently as snow or a blanket on a sleeping tot. No use railing, mine the moment for its sweetness, console when you can. “Hope,” I once wrote, “being a prerequisite for life, is our moral obligation, what we owe each other, as we owe each other truth, decency, kindness, generosity, humility. To forsake hope is a crime against the collective. One sourpuss sours all.”
I feel better already.