“I grow old, I grow old…
…I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”
The lines are from T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a masterpiece he began writing at the ripe old age of twenty-two.
It’s not uncommon for youth to lament the passage of time, and to feel old even when young. I recall my son having trouble sleeping on the eve of his fourth birthday, and when I asked him what was up he said, “It’s just that I’ll never be three again.”
Today I read this essay by Heather Havrilesky, only because it was linked to by Glenn Reynolds. In it, the 43-year old Havrilesky laments that her driver’s license photo isn’t as pert and perky and pretty as it was at 33 (she shows us the earlier photo but not the later one, although if you Google her she looks perfectly fine to me—but then again, 43 sounds awfully young to me).
You might say to Ms. Havrilesky, “Tough.” And it’s certainly the case that her piece is way too long and shows a certain self-centeredness. But you know what? I still have empathy/sympathy for her, because although we all have to do it (if we’re lucky enough to live long enough), and we all like to think we’ll have a great attitude, the truth is that growing old ain’t so psychologically easy.
I’ve been wrestling with it in various ways myself, and right here and now I will say that part of the reason is that my mother died last fall at the age of 98. I haven’t written about that event here because I wasn’t ready to write about it here, although someday in the not-too-distant future I plan to do so. I’ve been going through her things—just as the writer of the essay mentions she did with her father, who died young—and it’s a task that can’t help but conjure up the relative briefness of a life, even a life as long as my mother’s.
But for now I’ll just add this, from one of my favorite poems:
Overhead, overhead
Rushes life in a race,
As the clouds the clouds chase;
And we go,
And we drop like the fruits of the tree,
Even we,
Even so.
My condolences on the passing of your mother, Neo. For whatever it is worth . . . She seems to have done a good job at raising you!
Neo,
I know that in the past you have intermittently written about your mother. Sorry to hear of her passing; my condolences also.
What our youth-and-appearances society ignores (at its peril, IMO) is the fact that while age inexorably takes away youthful appearance, it confers something else more important—experience.
I’ll shortly be 63. Like others my age, I bemoan the lack of stamina and energy I had just 10 years ago (this is the part of aging they never tell you about). However, if I had the opportunity to return to even age 53 but had to give up my experiences of the last 10 years as the price, I would not choose to do so. With each passing year, it seems that I see more clearly, am more and more comfortable with myself, my spouse and my family. I realize that I had my opportunity at youth; perhaps I used that gift more wisely than some and less so than others, but I had my shot. Now, it’s the next generation’s turn.
I only hope that I can help advise them well so that they can avoid at least some of my pitfalls (nihil sub sole novum) while helping them negotiate their own. Like your mother and my own parents, my time, too, will draw nigh . . . and I’m okay with that ( I don’t like it, but I’m okay with it).
You illuminate one of the sadder aspects of many lives. I look back at various points and recall that I felt “old”. What a shame. The Navy, or any service, with the emphasis on youth can foster that. As it turned out, I started my airline career at the age of 50, and my perspective slowly changed. I realized I was old at 40 and not so old ten years later. Now, if I survive another week I will turn 78. I no longer worry about age. Nor, do I worry about what comes next; although I am happy to postpone the experience as long as I can function reasonably competently. I don’t worry excessively about the effects age has had on my appearance. I do what I feel like doing, and recognize that I can’t do all that I would like to, and that is generally ok. This attitude is liberating. I recommend it strongly.
Whenever I hear someone near and/or dear say they are limited by age I try to change the perspective. I am afraid that it is a problematic undertaking.
One thing I haven’t been able to do is convince my wife that no one expects her to look as she did 30 or 40 years ago; and that it is ok to look like a young 76 instead of a young 35 or 45.
I hope that your Mother was peaceful in her later years. As we know, they can be very hard for both the parent and the children.
Yes, to all of the above.
Not surprisingly, Abraham Lincoln had some noteworthy observations about life:
“Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and independence.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
You have to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.”
“It’s just that I’ll never be three again.”
That’s amazing and scary at the same time.
Losing a loved one is a hard row to hoe. You have my profound sympathy for your loss.
My sister & I were with mom when she died at age 86. A few days after the funeral my 2 brothers, my sister & I were tidying up her home (dad passed away 2 years earlier) when sis came crying into my arms holding one of mom’s dresses. She kept saying over and over that the dress smelled just like mom, which it did.
I’m 65, and as T notes, what I can do physically is not the same as just 10 short years ago. Its turning hot and muggy here and just 4 or 5 years ago my wife & I would be in one of the gardens working in the heat. Now we stay on the porch under the fan from after lunch until around 5 patiently waiting for the sun to get closer to the horizon. We remind each other everyday that the glass is half full. We have our 43 year bond of love and respect to be thankful for, we have our children and grand children, we have good neighbors, we have a porch to sit on, and we are happy to be in the quiet gentle folds of green, green Iowa. Selfishly I pray I will drop from the tree before my sweetheart does the same. I can’t imagine life without her.
I am so sorry to hear about your mom’s death, Neo. I know what going through a parent’s death is like.
I’m with T about the life’s experiences thing. I’m glad I no longer care about how I look, within the bounds of being respectable, of course. And I love all those been-there-done-that moments I have to bolster me against the latest fads in thinking. I’m glad I have time to hang out with the crowd here instead of worrying about what to wear at some corporate board meeting. People are far more important than positions and belongings. And even when they are gone they are still with you.
My deepest empathies on the loss of your beloved mother. That makes the Mother’s Day, beautiful family photos you shared even more poignant.
Sorry for your loss, words do not seem enough at times like this. May she find comfort in the arms of angels.
What a blessing to have your mom with you for so long! My mom died in an accident when she was 42, right before my 21st birthday. There is so much I wish I could have told her.
I spent the Fourth with old friends. I haven’t seen them since my husbands funeral five years ago. The little boys we used to take presents at Christmas are in their 20s and starting their own families. My husband used to be so close to his friend and they drifted apart. I can tell that it still weighs on my friend that he didn’t really get a chance to patch things up and say goodbye. It is inevitable that we will outlive our parents, that loved ones will die, and good friends drift apart. Yet joys remain ahead for us.
So sorry to hear of your mother’s death. I remember some of the pieces you wrote about her over the years; she seemed a very fine person. My heart-felt condolences.
Gad, what a long long long long piece she wrote.
My grandmother was a better person at 93 than she was at 92. And a much better person than she was at 80, 70, 60, 50 or 40. But as I watched her die, deeply disappointed that she wasn’t going to make it to 100, what became glaringly obvious was that we all die young.
I believe you really don’t understand your own mortality until your parents die. My sympathies.
We are all young in years. As you say, life is short. 98 is a small number of times around the sun.
Neo,
Your experience was almost identical to mine:
It had been a happy day for my daughter, including the pleasure of being with her friends and family at her 5th birthday party. And so I was surprised when I found her crying when I went to tuck her into bed that evening. I asked her why she was crying. ‘Because I will never be four again.’
I think for some of us the death of a parent, maybe especially of a father for a son and a mother for a daughter, feels like the removal of a wall between oneself and his or her own death. Parents die before children; and, so, as long as the parent is living, the child feels protected from death.
My best wishes as you say ‘Goodbye’ to your mother.
Your mother’s life was a long one, neo. May she RIP after a life that was well lived.
To live that long these days seems less remarkable. So many 90+ oldsters in my little town. My next door neighbor is 89 and her boy friend is 90. They still go dancing and are the life of the party at neighborhood get-togethers. Someone who dies younger than 80 hereabouts seems to have died quite young.
Age brings its sorrows. Old friends pass on, new aches and pains are discovered, doctor’s visits are no longer about simple problems, and either physical or monetary restrictions keep us from doing all that we would like.
On the other hand we have gained a certain peace of mind. We no longer care about keeping up with the Joneses. We are not trying to reinvent the wheel. We have a plethora of good memories to write and talk about. We still have old friends, and if we are computer literate, have made new ones. For me the years of retirement have given me an opportunity to learn so many things that I never knew. I look forward to learning something new everyday. And neo’s blog is a good place for that.
Like Frank Sinatra, I have a few regrets, but it does no good to dwell on those. There is still some life to be lived, some words to write, some old friends to visit, and some work to do trying to save the America I knew that seems to be slipping away. There’s snow on the roof, but there’s still some fire in the belly.
As my late father used to say: If you don’t want to grow old, you have to die young. He died at 66, and I am sure, he would have preferred to live longer.
As one who always enjoyed your posts about your Mother believe me, I have noticed your lack of them these last months. I have wondered so often and yet would never ask. I lost my Mother when she was just 37 and have rather enjoyed living vicariously reading about yours. I can only say how sorry I am am to read this news today and send along thoughts and prayers for you and her both.
While I would rather be younger (I am 47), I do relish one aspect of getting older- I care less, a lot less, about trivial matters of life. The sorts of things that would have upset or befuddled me when I was, let’s say <30 years old, simply roll off my back. The broader perspective gained by experience is literally invaluable.
“It is Margaret you mourn for.”
Your son sounds something like me, Neo.
There is a story about Ronald Knox (Catholic convert from Anglicanism, writer on religious topics) that at the age of four he suffered from insomnia, and when asked by a family friend what he thought about when he couldn’t sleep, replied “I lie awake and think about the past.”
Ah, Neo, I’m sorry about your mother. I lost my mother last year, too, in December. She was 84, but was full of plans and had conceded nothing to age that wasn’t forced from her. I hope I can do the same when I reach that time, and I’m still getting used to the world without her.
I am sorry also, Neo – my Mom is still kicking and still vigorous and able to stay in the dream retirement home that she and my Dad built to live in (and then built again when it was burnt to cinders in a brushfire in 2003 But Dad died very suddenly on the day after Christmas two years ago. Sometimes when I call Mom every Friday at 7 PM sharp, I don’t mind that she doesn’t pick up right away, because then the answering machine with Dad’s voice on it still picks up.
Condolences, although there is a time when passing is blessing to the living and the dead. So it was with our parents.
Heartfelt condolences, Neo.
It was either 30 or 33 when the whole notion of aging hit me. I do have empathy, finally, I suppose. There isn’t much to do but to lump it and leave it as the open sore it is. Well, and try to enjoy the parts of it that are good. Was running so hard and so fast looking for life that I was missing it. Passed up some wonderful women trying to be what I was. Can’t change the past but I can choose the future, whatever of it is left.
And I still giggle a bit when people lament. Just not at them. Hopefully, in time, with them, if I know them well enough. Women seem to be the most age concerned though too. Live longer but the biological clock ends long before the lifeline. A blessing within a curse I suspect, but it adds something I can’t know.
Personally I am racing my mother to the grave, I don’t want that part. While far physically weaker, she is stronger in these things. Besides, she’ll… get the joke… if I leave it for her to find. Won’t like it completely but she’ll get it, and laugh a bit to.
My deepest sympathies. I lost both parents in 2010, so I literally feel the same pain. We’re the older generation, now. I hope you make it at least to ninety eight, maybe more, if in good health. A virtual hug from Texas.
Time, time
Elastic in it Vastness,
Braids of steel in the finite.
Memories fading and returning,
Laughter, tears, warming Love,
All rests in the web of time.
I forgive you,
You forgive me,
We separate,
Only to join again,
In time.
I am very sorry for your loss, Neo.
I started feeling mortality very strongly at age 30. I suppose that’s why they have 19 year olds with guns who charge into the opposing lines. They’re invincible.
In a culture that overvalues youth, getting old is even more difficult. Beauty and strength fade. I never even appreciated how awesome and handsome I was at age 21. I felt nerdy. Now I’m happy to do even some sport activities relatively pain free.
Onward we march.
Bless your heart, Neo: I, too, know how it feels (I lost my mom in 2009, though Dad is still hanging in there, thank God).
This is (some of) my favorite poem: “Intimations of Immortality”
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 5
It is not now as it hath been of yore;–
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
The rainbow comes and goes, 10
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair; 15
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
. . .
–But there is a tree, of many, one,
A single field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The pansy at my feet 55
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, 60
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 65
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 70
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature’s priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended; 75
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
. . .
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy soul’s immensity; 110
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,–
Mighty prophet! Seer blest! 115
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a master o’er a slave, 120
A presence which is not to be put by;
To whom the grave
Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight
Of day or the warm light,
A place of thought where we in waiting lie; 125
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 130
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!
O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live, 135
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest– 140
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:–
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise; 145
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized, 150
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may, 155
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, 160
To perish never:
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy! 165
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither, 170
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
. . .
What though the radiance which was once so bright 180
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind; 185
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death, 190
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
. . .
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 205
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me, the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
–William Wordsworth
Neo, I’m glad you’ve mentioned the death of your mother because it means we have something else in common besides being conservative and middle aged [“I’m middle-aged, not old!”, he insists, clinging (without much credibility) to the very last vestige of long-gone youth]: My mother died on 7/11/2012, a year ago this coming Tuesday; I’m still going through her things, many of which are still being stored in a bunch of bankers’ boxes out in my garage. For me the hardest part has been the recurring realization that if we live long enough we all become orphans.
Ninety-eight years? Wow, what an accomplishment! And you’ve got those genes. …
Speaking of growing old, does anyone else here observe that Neo’s commenters tend to be “middled-aged”? I wonder why that is?
Certainly that bleat was far too long and narcissistic though I guess for some brands of blogger that is par. My gut response was, get some REAL problems, pampered git! If anyone REALLY doesn’t like aging there is one clear solution. Until it is THAT bad, just deal with it.
carl in Atlanta,
About 10-12 years ago (if memory serves) there was a book published about exactly that experience titled something like “We’re All Orphans.” I tried to find it at Amazon but to no avail.
Make no mistake about it, the death of our surviving parent brings a finality to our existence. It matters not how much one actually relied on that parent while s/he was still alive. After their passing we all become acutely aware of the fact that, while our children still look to us, there is no longer anyone for us to look to.
megapotomus,
You seem to commit the common sin of confusing an objective identification and discussion of a life-milestone with complaining about it. (Hint: They’re not the same!)
“Pampered git?” Name calling? You’re obviously not there yet.
Neo,
My sympathies. I lost my mom a couple years ago; I still miss her. I hope there’s a heaven; she deserved it.
Of the several bloggers I read religiously, you write like a wise and knowledgeable friend. You provide us with valuable insight regarding the confusing and historic times through which we are passing. But you leaven that by sharing your life and thoughts and feelings in a dignified manner. Thank you.
A great many thanks to all who offered condolences. I appreciate it very much.
At some point I’ll write more about my mother’s death. But for now I’ll just say going through the stuff is hard. Some of it isn’t my mother’s, but from earlier ancestors, or even from people she knew who are long dead but who gave her their memorabilia.
For example, there’s a large amount of stuff from a family friend who was a British actor (he always had work, but was not especially famous), lots of letters and memorabilia of his, and he died many decades ago. I think my mother had planned to go through it some time and perhaps write an essay or a book, or donate it somewhere (some of the letters involve reminiscences about some famous stage actors). Now I will have to figure out what to do with all of that, too.
I understand and don’t understand why it is hard to go through a loved one’s stuff. On the hand, it makes you realize how much they are gone, the finality of it. On the other hand, to have stuff to go through! That is better than no stuff to go through.
It is better to hurt than not to be.
Sorry I’m so late in the thread, Neo, but wanted to send my condolences as well. I loved your posts about your mother, and was beginning to wonder why there hadn’t been one for so long.
David Yotham: I like your poem, especially the line about elastic in time. At 65, I begin to appreciate that property!
I also always loved your posts about your mother and other elderly relatives. They always made me smile. My condolences for your loss.