Sixty-Seven

“I don’t ever remember being afraid of “oldness”.

There are things I miss about being younger - chiefly the ability to pull all-nighters on the lash and then turning up for work and working well; and being smiled at by girls I didn’t know who thought I was cute; and I wish I had the eyesight I had even five years ago… but all that stuff feels pretty trivial.

I’m happier than I’ve been at any time in my life these days. I have a wonderful wife whom I adore, I have watched four amazing children grow into four delightful adults and am now watching four younger children grow in to remarkable young people, my favourite youngsters although one is twenty-two.
I have an astonishing number of grand life experiences.
I’ve made differences I’m proud of, I have real, true, friends, and I’ve been able to do real good for things I care about, like the RNA, like the RBL, like Cancer Research or Macmillan Nursing

Sometimes I’ll do something with the RNA, or a youth group, and completely surprise myself.

I miss friends who have died, but then, I’m glad that time gave them to me, to befriend them, even for a while, and that I was alive to know them.

I miss my family, not those I see on a day to day basis but those who I grew up with, those who endured life struggles when we had little but enjoyed what we had.

I look back with the quiet satisfaction of one who has travelled extensively when travel equalled effort; my children will visit more countries than I ever did because its now easy to travel.

I look at my four children and my four grandchildren and I get a ‘tight’ feeling in my chest; love knows no bounds and the love a parent has for a child is unconditional and limitless.

Ah, I’m rabbiting on, and I sound a bit more Pollyannaish than I’m intending to sound: I know the downside of age and the downside of time, and I am sure that the view from age 67 is not the view from age 75.

I wish the time hadn’t gone so fast, though. And sometimes I wish I’d enjoyed it more on the way, and worried about it less.”