Gramma Westphal and My Aging Dilemma

What is it with aging? Howcum I never noticed it much until I suddenly realized it was happening to me?

Only very lately have I begun picking up the ominous cues:

I eat more carefully and wisely
lest my body-mass dwindle.
I exercise more vigorously
for the same reason.
I practice yoga assiduously,
lest my strength, flexibility,
and balance escape me.
Do I forget more easily?
Hmmmmnn!?
Can't remember. . . .

For instance, I'm now at that difficult stage of my life where family and friends are dying off at what seems an alarming rate. I hold their hands lovingly, listen quietly as they assure me sweetly: "I've had a good life, dear friend -- adieu. . . ."

Believe me: you live into your seventies, you live such scenes, hear such quiet words of gratitude and acceptance, more often than you wish. Such dignity. Such gratitude. Such reassurance from those you have loved is at once instructive and humbling.

We're university people, have been teachers all our adult lives. We study and learn and teach. Perhaps we're over-educated and under-smart. To many of us, the after-life is much like the before-life we try to imagine to no avail: nothingness, oblivion. No reassuring light at the end of the tunnel for us.

This perspective tends to encourage a here-and-now view that makes us feel increasingly responsible for living the most generous lives we can right now. Not a bad gamble.


Increasingly, as I grow older, I find myself writing and delivering eulogies. A solemn, yet uplifting task, this speaking-fair and fairly the virtues of many friends and family who have for so long deserved my admiration and true love. Why this sad duty falls to me, I cannot be certain. But it frequently has, and does more frequently as time passes.

Could be I am chosen, because I have this long-standing habit of seeing the beauty in people I especially like. They laugh and tell me I have Christmas Eyes: I am fond of them and therefore see beautiful gifts they feel they don't possess. Perhaps it's the other way around: I am fond of them because they possess these beautiful gifts. I'm sure the latter is true. They're not so sure.

It's become something of a joke. Not a very funny one at times. I'm nearly the last of my family in my generation.

All I know is that my friends are crowding into line ahead of me -- or so they hope. Elbows fly. Lotsa pushing and shoving. Some good-natured grumbling.

They assign me the responsibility to think up something good to say about them. There's a strange irony in the way we joke about our real and imagined virtues:

A credit card plunks down into the middle of our restaurant table:

"Let it be remembered I picked up the check today!"
A thumb stretches a tight waist-band:
"Recall to all how I am the Wizard of Weight-Control!"
An upraised head, index-finger lightly brushing across eyebrows:
"Remind them of my elegance and good looks!"
A crinkled Washington's drops lightly into the middle of the table:
"Let it be known I was always a big tipper!"
Broad arm gestures draw attention the torn-out knees of levis:
"Speak of my elegant attire!"

Brave smiles and dark humor. We laugh in the face of the Grim Reaper.

Speaking well of old-and-well-worn friends is a task I take seriously. Both now and later. Trust me: there's much good to say, or I wouldn't've chosen them as friends in the first place. Nor would they have chosen me.

My aging friends and I tend to be philosophical about our end-of-life programming. If you're puzzled or doubtful about this, then you're prob'ly too young to imagine your own inevitable end.

All you veritable youngsters view your own end-of-life as if you're walking toward the horizon: it never gets any closer. You imagine you'll never get there.

But I assure you: we ALL get there:

For every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under heaven

Or so spake the author of Ecclesiastes 3:1

a time to be born and a time to die;
a time to kill and a time to heal;
a time to pull down and a time to build up;
a time for mourning and a time for dancing;
a time to weep and a time to laugh. . . .

On he goes. As I recall, he lists 28 such times and purposes. Each assertion invites patient consideration. A well-lived life provides many instances which invite a busy mind to contemplate such blessings and tribulations. Countcher blessings, and all that. . . .

As I examine the passage more closely I'm intrigued to notice once again how each one of the fourteen pairs -- the extremes -- are offered variously. In some lines, the blessing comes first and the tribulation second. In other lines the sequence is reversed. As in:

a time to be born and a time to die;
a time for mourning and a time for dancing. . . .

I've often wondered what this variation might be telling us -- if anything. Careless editing? Incorrect transcription of text? Poetic license? Or is some significant meaning buried there?

This moment it strikes me suddenly that perhaps the writer is suggesting that the apparent joys and sorrows of life all carry the same weight and meaning. That in the infinite passage of time, the joys and sorrows weigh virtually the same. As in this too shall pass away.

Years ago my gracefully aging grandmother said to me on her 73rd birthday something I was still too young to understand: "Robby, I've learned to live moment-to-moment, instead of day-to-day, week-to-week, or year-to-year. My days are much the same. Only my body changes with my birthdays. In my heart I am still your age."

It just this moment occurs to me:
My aging dilemma?
I don't think Gramma would understand.

How is it my Gramma Minny -- so long dead -- gets so much smarter every year? She never groused or complained. Her face brightened when she spoke with me. She worked hard. She expected to enjoy her days. And so she did.

She read the Bible. Far as I know, she had never read the Tao.

Yet she reached out for me
as she reached out for all of life,
and celebrated with a smile.

So let these three lines be her long-awaited eulogy.