Growing Old

They say as soon as we’re born, we start to die. I’m not sure if that is true, but I guess it probably is if you look at it in the right way. We are born and immediately start aging.

In watching my parents growing old and dying, I have come to realize a few things. We cannot stop it. I don’t think we’ll ever have the technology to stop it. We can try to hide the signs and symptoms of it with things like wrinkle cream and joint replacement, but we will still keep on aging. It will happen to us all.

But the thing I have been thinking about the most here lately, is how to grow old. Can it be done gracefully? Can it be done with laughter? Can it be done with faith in God? Even though there is physical pain? Even though the realization that the end is near? Do we have the right to be all crotchety when we’re old?

No one can predict the future and no one knows the future except God. I’m very glad about that. I think if we knew the future, we might never get out of the bed again!

I want to grow old with grace and laughter no matter how I feel physically or emotionally. I may get dementia like my daddy did. I may not know anyone, but I will make new friends every day! I want to have that kind of attitude. I don’t want to be the old woman no one wants to be around. I want to be the ideal wise grandmother type that people love to sit with and listen to and talk to.

I don’t know if I will live a long life, but I know I want to have life in the years I have left on this earth. I will fail at this many times and get down about aging like we all do, but I will keep on trying. That is all any of us can do!