Old age, how boring! Well, it's not boring if you happen to be old. Writing a message in a birthday card for my father in law who is 90 years old, I was about to write congratulations. Then I thought why am I congratulating him? Is it an achievement? Has he done anything to get to this advanced age, or has it just happened in spite of anything he may have done, or not done? Should I say to him well done for surviving?
My friend Langford is older than me. Though I would probably have personally avoided the possibility, Langford splendidly fathered a child at the age of sixty-five and has allowed the boy to keep him fit ever since. But Langford's father died aged only forty and when Langford was thirty-nine we all had to emotionally support him and buy him reassuring pints of bitter and assure him that there was no significance in the fact that his father had died so young. He was not convinced and was in a state of high anxiety until well past his fortieth birthday. He desperately needed to be forty-one.
At the time I thought how silly, but recently, in the last few weeks of my seventy-fifth year I felt just as Langford had done. My father died at seventy-five. Would I survive? I am now seventy-six and can say "Cheers Langford! you are seventy-nine and I am still seventy-six, and we have both lived longer than our parents."
You hear people boasting, "Would you believe I'm 83 years old?" Of course I believe it if you say so, but I assure you it is no particular achievement. It just happens, and no, it does not depend on whether you have led an abstemious, frugal and pure life. I should know because I have survived after many many years of overindulgence in this, that and the other. If you are fortunate enough to reach an advanced age without dodderiness or illness, then all you can do is give thanks and carry on.
If unfortunately you are struck down with some debilitating physical condition or just illness and senility, well that's life and you have to live with it. No choice. And if you are lucky enough to survive and to grow old and live a full life into your seventies and eighties, please don't boast about it. Be assured you have probably done nothing to deserve it. Just enjoy it.
Having said all that I am sure you can increase your chances of survival by keeping your brain active. Don't give up and sit in front of the telly. Do stuff. I write poetry and this blog and novels. Some people garden and grow things. I am convinced that exercise not only keeps the body going, but by pumping oxygen around the bloodstream, keeps the brain alert as well. I abandoned my car ten years ago, easy for me of course because I have a Freedom Pass giving me free travel on any form of transport within Greater London. Whichever government thought of that one must have been mad. It means loads of us pensioners will carry on for years, certainly those of us who use the Freedom Pass to get us out on to the London Loop, a fantastic network of footpaths around the outskirts of London. Epping Forest. Walk in the forest which is just as you imagined it in your childhood, then stop and put your arms around the smooth bole of a venerable oak. Then have lunch at that pub near Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge. Their lamb cutlets are juicy and exquisite.
I wonder what I should do for my 77th birthday coming up soon? Suggestions on a postcard (as they used to say) but now a text, an email, or a message on Facebook.
