Tho' much is taken, much abides

I was born in 1949.  I am sixty as of September 12.  I am now the age my grandmother was when I was born.  I was her first grandchild.  If I follow the projection of my grandmother's life, I have only 16 more years left before the end.

If I follow in my mother's footsteps, I will be gone in 4 years.

On the other hand, should I model myself after my grandfather, I have another 29 years ahead of me.  Aside from deafness and a terrifying inability to drive safely, Grandpa was healthy until the day he died.  I share two of the three characteristics listed.  You figure it out.

Or, if I track my dad, I have another 25 years to go.  My dad went off to WWII at the age of 17 and saw and endured things that marked him for life.  At one point, he missed his boat which went down with all hands.  Another time he was in a PT boat with blood up to his ankles.  He was sealed off in a flooding compartment with about half a dozen other sailors and was the only one to emerge alive.  I believe he's suffered from survivor guilt his whole life. He never expected to live to 40.  He never believed in the future, and is both astonished and rueful about being 85.  He is convinced he is going to hell when he dies, and so has decided not to.

You can't help thinking about things like this when you reach landmark birthdays.  Life moves faster as you age and life changes faster than you can comprehend or embrace.  You can feel yourself becoming obsolete.  When the children are grown and the career is over, it is easy to feel unnecessary and to wonder, not if your life has any purpose, but if it ever did.  What has been the point?  The meaning of life, if there is one... is it nothing more than just the day to day living of it?  This is how our thoughts turn when we are no longer young.  We must grow philosophic as we approach the unescapable unknown ending. 

Bette Davis said that old age ain't for sissies.
Woody Allen said he didn't mind dying, he just didn't want to be there when it happened.

The certainty of one's death tinges everything when one reaches a certain age.  Is it any wonder that the majority of the elderly suffer from clinical depression?  It would be so easy to succumb to the darker thoughts and primal fears. 

But you can't dwell on these things.  There's more to life than death.  Life is too sweet even as it is too short to let the shortness of it eclipse all else. 

So I will take a page from Alfred Lord Tennyson, and end here with a quote from my favorite poem of his, Ulysses.  Ulysses is speaking to his surviving comrades at the ebb of his life.  He is chafing at the limits of his strength and the burden of his responsibility.  Ulysses was a hero, but I think the sentiment expressed in these lines is appropriate for all mortals.  Here is the excerpt that most speaks to me:

...you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.

Death closes all; but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;

The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.