We're All Going to Get Old

Yesterday I was visiting my dad and found myself caught up in a picture on his wall that I have seen hundreds of times.  Back when my dad was in his early 50s, he accomplished something he had always wanted to do.  He won a silent auction for the opportunity to throw out the first pitch at a Seattle Mariners game.  As I stared at the framed photos and story on the wall, I looked at the man who was my dad back then.  He had a full grey beard.  I, being in my early 20s, probably thought he was pretty old.  Yet, looking at the picture now, I saw a man in mid-life with so much life before him.  I saw a man just thrilled by getting to do something he had always dreamed of doing.  I saw the beaming smile that was his trademark.  I saw the sparkle in his eye that I haven't seen in many years.  

And then I looked at the man who is my dad today.  He has been stricken by Parkinson's disease which is slowly taking him away from us.  He is hunched over.  He shuffles when he walks.  He is losing the ability to show emotion in his face.  He uses a walker.  He fell again last week.  His short term memory is poor, although he can still tell you stories from high school, if he can find the words he's looking for.  Parkinson's is taking him away from me.  And I realized yesterday that I'm not far from the age my dad was when he threw that pitch.  It's probably been 25 years since that day at the Mariners game.  So much life has happened in those 25 years.  And yet, they seemed to pass in a blink of an eye.  

We're all going to get old.  My dad is 76 years old.  My mom didn't live to see 74.  That's just 30 years for me.  Granted, we're not guaranteed any additional day.  Nonetheless, I can't help think of my parents in their 40s.  I'm sure my kids see me as old, just as I saw my parents when I was in my teens.  My parents had me 10 years after they were married.  They were first time parents in their early 30s back in 1969.  That was unusual then.  All my friend's parents were 10 years younger than mine.  I thought my mom was so out of touch and that there was no way she could remember being 16.  When I was 16, my mom was 48, just a few years older than I am now.  And as I approach my oldest son's 15th birthday, I swear I was just celebrating my own 15th birthday a few blinks ago.  

I spend time talking to lots of the residents at my dad's assisted living community.  They were all my age once.  Now some can't walk.  Some can't communicate well.  Some have multiple illnesses or ailments.  Most take multiple medications.  For whatever reason, they no longer live in their own home anymore.

Speaking of homes...today a mutual agreement was achieved on an offer on my mom and dad's house.  This was not my childhood home.  But it is the home where my mom died.  I have spent the past three months cleaning it out and preparing it to be sold.  Last weekend, I left it, almost empty, knowing that I might never walk through it again.  That home signified my parents' retirement years that they were supposed to have which never truly materialized.  I know we have to let the house go.  I'm ready to be done paying all the bills.  I'm ready for my dad to have some more cash to invest.  Nonetheless, there is another part of me that wants to hold on to that house because it represents so much that will simply never come to pass.

Thinking about all of this reminds me about living in the moment.  And that has always been a challenge for me.  I don't have to look 30 years out.  But my mom passed along her "worry gene", so living in the moment is definitely difficult for me.  Even though I know it is all I have to do.  I just have to live THIS moment.  Although, admittedly, I can't help but look for myself in the eyes of some of the residents in my dad's assisted living community.  We're all going to get old.  Someday my children will be rifling through the pieces of my life in papers and memorabilia.  But I only have to do today.  And work to make decisions today that will allow me to age as healthy as possible.  However, because of where I am in my life today, it's hard not to consider my own mortality on nearly a daily basis.  But maybe that's not such a bad thing.

We're all going to get old, if we are lucky enough to live a long life.  But we only have to live one day at a time.  Mindfulness.  In this moment.  Perhaps the next 30 years will still pass by in the blink of an eye, but I want to make sure I fully LIVE as many of the moments in those years as possible.