I was slightly dreading seeing Paul today - what on earth do you say to someone dying? You don't have to say anything really - just let them talk, if they want, just keep them company. That was my strategy - but at about 9.20 this morning I thought I ought to call him to see whether he would like me to bring him anything. His voice immediately told me - he said "it's all happening much faster. They haven't moved me, I'm still here..." he said he didn't feel up to seeing anyone - so that's it. That was our goodbye - and then I remembered I hadn't given him all the loves and good wishes of friends, so I sent a text, in case he felt a bit better later - but this is the modern age - death bed with mobile phones and text - Facebook and Twitter too if you have an Android or whatever....
The horrible thing about one's friends dying is that it should be about them, but you cannot help it becoming about you - your mortality, your death, your anxieties. I suppose that is a sign of us all being in this together. We are reluctantly drawn to death, because we know it will happen to us to - we want a clue, what's it going to be like? I feel very un-dead, very alive at the moment - partly because of the rollercoaster of life in the last few weeks - and endlessly changing perspective keeps one alert and thinking. But at the same time, aware that what's happening to Paul, the "work of dying" I think someone called it, is a labour I am likely to have to undertake in some years time.
Fear of aging
I always thought I would grow old gracefully, that I would not be perturbed by the physical changes, the wrinkles etc. and I've been lucky - I went grey in my 30s and only started dyeing my hair 4 years ago - pledging to stop when I lost a decent amount of weight. But I have become aware in the last few months that some of my behaviour is a last ditch attempt to hold back the ravages of age - and I can see it in some of my friends too - behaving outrageously in an attempt to prove one isn't on the way out yet, lying about age, all sorts of corny little tricks. One ought to have integrity about these things - I know I'm wiser and more sensible than I was 4-5 years ago even - one ought to be majoring in wisdom and experience, rather than trying to prove one's still "young"... or at least only in early middle age. Of course it's crap that 50 is the new 30 - we don't have to pretend that, but it isn't the same 50 that our parents experienced. I am glad to have inherited some of my father's vitality - and some of my mother's thoughtfulness - a killer combination really for a comfortable old age, as long as my heart doesn't start playing up when the menopause finally occurs.
But the fears are simply: not achieving what I've begun to do, not seeing the world get a tiny bit better, becoming demented, or incapacitated in some way, not seeing how the story ends, not seeing a few descendants, having a dependent partner (Mark for example). These are all monstrously selfish things - but the whole business about aging is a very personal, indiosyncratic thing... it's not really an issue where you can unite to fiight collectively against your fate - there are issues, campaigns one can join - but ultimately one's personal physical and mental decline (God forbid!) are, like death, an entirely personal matter, with very little remedy available.
So this is the still point of the turning world - where one is both happy to be alive and reasonably healthy and also aware of the path ahead. One can fight it all off with projects and plans, these aren't displacement activities, after all one really can't spend the next 30 years thinking endlessly about age and dying, but I am beginning to wonder, as I age whether inevitably anything I write will begin to take on the tone of the Book of Ecclesiastes - grumbling and muttering "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity..." and refusing to engage with the modern world.
The horrible thing about one's friends dying is that it should be about them, but you cannot help it becoming about you - your mortality, your death, your anxieties. I suppose that is a sign of us all being in this together. We are reluctantly drawn to death, because we know it will happen to us to - we want a clue, what's it going to be like? I feel very un-dead, very alive at the moment - partly because of the rollercoaster of life in the last few weeks - and endlessly changing perspective keeps one alert and thinking. But at the same time, aware that what's happening to Paul, the "work of dying" I think someone called it, is a labour I am likely to have to undertake in some years time.
Fear of aging
I always thought I would grow old gracefully, that I would not be perturbed by the physical changes, the wrinkles etc. and I've been lucky - I went grey in my 30s and only started dyeing my hair 4 years ago - pledging to stop when I lost a decent amount of weight. But I have become aware in the last few months that some of my behaviour is a last ditch attempt to hold back the ravages of age - and I can see it in some of my friends too - behaving outrageously in an attempt to prove one isn't on the way out yet, lying about age, all sorts of corny little tricks. One ought to have integrity about these things - I know I'm wiser and more sensible than I was 4-5 years ago even - one ought to be majoring in wisdom and experience, rather than trying to prove one's still "young"... or at least only in early middle age. Of course it's crap that 50 is the new 30 - we don't have to pretend that, but it isn't the same 50 that our parents experienced. I am glad to have inherited some of my father's vitality - and some of my mother's thoughtfulness - a killer combination really for a comfortable old age, as long as my heart doesn't start playing up when the menopause finally occurs.
But the fears are simply: not achieving what I've begun to do, not seeing the world get a tiny bit better, becoming demented, or incapacitated in some way, not seeing how the story ends, not seeing a few descendants, having a dependent partner (Mark for example). These are all monstrously selfish things - but the whole business about aging is a very personal, indiosyncratic thing... it's not really an issue where you can unite to fiight collectively against your fate - there are issues, campaigns one can join - but ultimately one's personal physical and mental decline (God forbid!) are, like death, an entirely personal matter, with very little remedy available.
So this is the still point of the turning world - where one is both happy to be alive and reasonably healthy and also aware of the path ahead. One can fight it all off with projects and plans, these aren't displacement activities, after all one really can't spend the next 30 years thinking endlessly about age and dying, but I am beginning to wonder, as I age whether inevitably anything I write will begin to take on the tone of the Book of Ecclesiastes - grumbling and muttering "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity..." and refusing to engage with the modern world.
No comments:
Post a Comment