Old Age

I visited a friend last night who is old, and is perhaps dying. His condition shocked me, even though I had been warned - a few months ago, he was fully capable - intellectually, physically, emotionally. After several falls and medical complications, I found him in a chair, thin, sunken eyes, the voice weak and slow. Several times during my visit, he had to go through the long and exhausting ritual of shifting forwards in his chair so that he could get a urinal under him to pee. I had to stand in front of him, ready to catch him if he slipped off the end of the chair, and help him get his underware down and back up.

I found myself scared, not wanting to be there. In the past, I recall visiting old people in nursing homes, and going into that trance that most visitors seem to have - How are you today? What did you have to eat? Do they treat you well? Good to see you, I'll come back again soon. They felt like an alien creature that I could not relate to. Especially as a child, they seemed so different than me in their actions, looks, and speech, that I did not relate at all.

But this man was a close friend, someone who had been a mentor to me, someone whose thoughts and feelings about life were deep and poinent to me. I struggled with the superimposed images of my mentor with this weak skeleton of a man, and shuttered. I could relate to the friend I knew. But if I related to this man, I would have to face that I could be here someday, having friends undress me and giving me sponge baths, giving up the idea of ever driving again, watching my mind fade until I could not remember what I was watching.

My internal reactions were not nice. I wanted to leave. I resented him talking so long, making it hard to leave a sick friend. I resented having to get him some food. I felt scared, almost sick. My mind shut off, and I found myself treating him like an old person, being polite, but distancing myself so as not to feel my own vulnerability to the fragility of the human body.

I pretend I will live forever, and that old people somehow have fallen from the path, rather than seeing old age as part of the path. I still cling to the notion that I have yet to accomplish my mission on earth, and if I become old and die before I do, my entire life will be worthless. And I am aware that at any moment, a car crossing the line, an anorism, a terrorist act could end it all. I feel a panic.

It is experiences like these that challenge me to look at my life, and ask, who am I really, and what am I doing here? And those are ultimately good questions to ask.