(An occasional reflection on getting older)

I was at the post office the other day checking my Post Office Box, one of the nicest chores of my day, and I dropped one of the letters as I pulled it out of the box. A young woman entering the post office saw it fall. “Can I help you pick that up?,” she asked, rushing to pick up the letter, and I was surprised to hear myself say “yes, thank you.”

It was a sweet thing for her to do, but it was bittersweet. I realized that she would never have suggested that if I didn’t look older, perhaps too old to bend down that far and pick the letter up. This was shocking to me, it was the first time in my life anyone has ever asked if they could pick up something I dropped, especially a think little letter, and I realized that from her perspective – she was very young – I looked old enough so that she thought she ought to intervene and help me.

She would never, of course, have made that offer to a young man or a  young woman. “Oh,” she said smiling, as she walked away, “I love your books.” I was beet red. I was mortified to be the man who couldn’t pick up his own letter.

I am able to pick things up off of the floor or the ground, but it is not as simple or fluid as it used to be, sometimes I need a strategy for it, something to lean on or help me pull myself up. I don’t often look at the photos and videos Maria increasingly puts up of me, but you probably have seen for yourself that I am getting older. Merton said this was the age when we are “beginning to be old.” I always liked that term.

I have to learn to look in the mirror and love the face I see. It is me.

That same afternoon, I went to the hardware store and bought some bags of mulch for Maria. When I went to pay, Bryan, the store manager, offered to help put them into the car. “I’ve never asked for help with that before,” I said, embarrassed. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, “better to ask for help than pull a muscle in your  back. That’s why we are here.” He was trying to spare me the embarrassment he sensed, I think, he made it look like he did this for everybody.

But I am often at the hardware store, and Bryan doesn’t make this offer to everybody, most people put their own bags of mulch into their trunks and pick-ups.

And the truth is, I am glad he offered to help, I was thinking about my back, and how it would handle that task. It was difficult for me to accept these offers of help, I literally had to grit my teeth, but sometimes pride does goeth before a fall,or even a muscle pull, and I am needing to see myself in the way that others see me, and accept where i am in life.

Today, I started to go out and mow the lawn. It was 80 degrees and I was determined to do it. Maria gently reminded me that it not a good for me to be out in strong sun, some of my medications don’t respond well to it. It is just too hot, she said, wait for tomorrow. I knew she was right, I was discouraged, unsettled, I went into the house to read and write on the blog.

In my head, I am young, vigorous, able to do all of the things I always did. My body does not always agree. Maria does a number of the chores that I used to do, she gracefully steps in and fills the void that never used to be there.  I love farm chores, I am a farm chore addict. I still do many of them, but sometimes, I just take photos of them.

Maria does not see me as old, thank God, or if she does, she shows no signs of it. She insists I am handsome. Maybe love really is blind.

So the truth is, people are  beginning to see me as older, in need of help. Grocery store clerks sometimes ask me if I need help getting groceries out and into the car. (I don’t.) I need to understand this, I can certainly do almost everything I used to do, but not everything, and people are beginning to see that in me. And are trying to help.

It makes me angry, but that is not a healthy response to help.

Being mortal means being truthful, and accepting where  you are. I have friends who constantly do “old” talk, and I hate it. I don’t do it. The older you see yourself, the older you will be, in your eyes and in the eyes of others. I want to accept being mortal, but it is not a defining element in my life, not yet, and hopefully, not ever.

Old talk nearly killed me, I kept telling myself I was just getting old, that’s why I was struggling to talk to the mailbox. I walk plenty now, and don’t struggle, open heart surgery reminds me to deal with mortality openly and honestly.

I am doing all of the things I want to do in life, even if I need help once in a while.  Even if I forget things i used to always remember. My doctors say I am healthier than ever, mentally and physically. But they do not say I am getting younger. Getting help is humbling, and that is a healthy thing.

I know where I am, and I will own up to it. But I will not surrender to it. And  am at the age where death is much closer than it is far away.  I am beginning to ask and consider the hard questions of mortality, questions I began considering in my work as a hospice volunteer.

How is it that people die so differently? From so many different causes?  Why do some people die peacefully and so many die in great pain? Why do so many die long, protracted, obscenely expensive and difficult deaths? Why do so many people die so quickly in nursing homes, and live so much longer at home? Why are we told again and again to avoid hospitals when it is time to die?

These questions speak to being mortal, to our mortal end, especially as it is lived in the United States, where we hide from death all of our lives, and suddenly come face-to-face with it, frightened and ill-prepared.

This is a wonderful time of life for me, not a sad one. I have never lived more meaningfully, more happily, more creatively. My own experience in recent years has taught me that I can shape the nature of my life if I am willing to think about it and consider my choices. There are many things I cannot control, many things I can.

And I will. It is good to sometimes be helped. It is good to sometimes accept help.