I met Mr. and Mrs. Louis sometime in the 70's, and they seemed old, or at least grandparently, to me at the time. This comes from being the first born rather than the seventh.
I have yet to grapple with the loss of autonomy of parents that many of my age peers are dealing with. Co-workers and friends are dealing with aging and death. I can see my own parent's gradual decline. Although for now it is mostly physical -- manifest in declining mobility, aging joints, chronic pain. And the rare critical incident.
I've seen the example of my grandfather, now past ninety. In his eighties his body became weary, but his mind continued to expand in new directions. Newspapers, books, computers, gardening, volunteer work and travel kept his mind from atrophying. An eighty something year old, who learned to drive in a Model T, writing a newsletter on a computer. That's something.
But, if the body maintains, or at least the vital organs do, the brain will ultimately betray us. The mind, relying as it does on a fragile network of cells and chemicals, slips away. That betrayal is the most troubling to us all.
Since a young age, I've been in touch with the transient nature of life. I had Billy Pilgrim's ability to allow the present to have a tenuous grasp on me. Even more than usual, the temporariness of it all is present in my mind.
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I have yet to grapple with the loss of autonomy of parents that many of my age peers are dealing with. Co-workers and friends are dealing with aging and death. I can see my own parent's gradual decline. Although for now it is mostly physical -- manifest in declining mobility, aging joints, chronic pain. And the rare critical incident.
I've seen the example of my grandfather, now past ninety. In his eighties his body became weary, but his mind continued to expand in new directions. Newspapers, books, computers, gardening, volunteer work and travel kept his mind from atrophying. An eighty something year old, who learned to drive in a Model T, writing a newsletter on a computer. That's something.
But, if the body maintains, or at least the vital organs do, the brain will ultimately betray us. The mind, relying as it does on a fragile network of cells and chemicals, slips away. That betrayal is the most troubling to us all.
Since a young age, I've been in touch with the transient nature of life. I had Billy Pilgrim's ability to allow the present to have a tenuous grasp on me. Even more than usual, the temporariness of it all is present in my mind.
- mark 1-12-2005 9:26 am