Old So What

  Death is not clean and easy. You just don’t continue with your life as before. Death is messy and brutish, unforgettable and inescapable. It’s a nuisance nightmare you don't want. Because of Death, there is no second chance, no do-over. There’s no fixing, no repair, no starting again, no next chapter. As a consequence, there is no longer membership for you in that great brother- and sisterhood of being in love. You are no longer in love. You are now in Death.    

  Your family usually starting with the eldest members begin to disappear. One by one they leave.   At first, because you’re young, you don’t notice all that much, but eventually it all catches up with you, until you are forced to notice. This usually happens around the time you realize that you are now getting old. You lose a spouse or a parent, in other words a significantly essential person. Where’d they go? Unfortunately, we know…so start now having a few extra caring people around you.   You can never have enough of those. Having a loving pet is good, too.   And don’t forget to provide a caretaker for that pet for when you, yourself, disappear.

  If somewhere along the way you’ve lost (through no fault of your own), the love of your life, then that should definitely be considered a mitigating circumstance to your faults.

  I realize the time to miss you is now endless, reaching to eternity, but luckily for me I won’t be here that long. I found out that the garbage and trash pickup days are endless, too, reaching to eternity. I discovered that I am old. I suspect that I will run out of money long before I run out of me. I observe history, as recounted by younger generations, who weren’t there, get a lot of it wrong.   I no longer have a love for travel if you can’t come along. I think I am a great deal more patient. I can afford to wait at traffic lights.   After all, what’s the rush? I enjoy spending my time around my pets because they don’t understand and they don’t judge. I feel as though I have lost my place in the world. I never thought you would die.

  I am free, really free for the first time in about fifty years! If I want to eat ice cream for breakfast there’s no one to question me. If I want to get a dog to go with my cat there’s no one to stop me. If I want to change religions (or go without); change diets, friends, or just television channels it’s all up to me. No matter what family or friends may think, or they may say:  I AM the ultimate authority over my own life. With taking into account that ultimate negotiator ugly as it is: money! (And the fact that a trusted relative or confident, whose advice you’ll actually take, is always most appreciated.)