I have told the story before on these pages……of the night, just days before her passing, when in the darkness of our living room the two of us sat in adjoining recliners. It was there that Roma Joy, the lady with whom I had spent sixty-seven years trying to make sense of life, squeezed my hand, smiled her magical smile, and calmly made her point.
“You know,” she began. “I am really glad it is working out the way it is……with me being the first to go.”
I don’t remember what I said in the awkward moment, or if I said anything at all. In any case, she was not through.
“I know that I couldn’t go on alone,” she continued. “I just couldn’t do that. But you can. You will be able to carry on. That is what you will have to do……'carry on' for you and the kids.”
So it was, with those few words……followed by minutes of thoughtful silence ……that sweet lady had spelled out my late-life commission…… raising questions I have yet to answer, though I know I must keep on trying.
Lest I forget, let me state right here that Roma was (and is) a strong soul. I have no doubt that she could have ‘carried on’ just fine. That, however, was not the way things worked out. Instead, I was the one left to carry on, facing a late-life future……the kind that has always been trying, and in some ways has become increasingly so in out modern world.
I hope you will consider today’s October Years post as a message from all of us who look ahead to what feels like an increasingly limited future, asking ourselves how we are meant to make the most of it.
I invite you to join me on the walk that many of us late-lifers walk every day……a stroll that begins with the question……”How can I walk these last miles alone, without her help?” How can I overcome the ‘alone’ part of my circumstances?
I will admit that has become a subject of continuing conversation……if only with myself and her. In the beginning it was meant to be a wider, ongoing dialogue ……hopefully with others joining in along the way.
Though any one of these October Years posts is likely to reach one hundred or more readers, truth to tell, I am lucky if one or two of those folks actually join the conversation via the ‘Comments’ option. Still, when it feels like I have have something to say I will keep talking to myself.
I have made my share of mistakes in the course of my eighty-eight years. Just this morning as I lay in bed (a misnomer…since I sleep in my recliner) I was replaying some of those remembered miscues ……ones that will not let themselves be forgotten. Though I may have cringed a bit, I was also laughing at how stupid I had sometimes been in my glory days. I take it to be a good sign that I can see the humor in those missteps.
But before I get too far off track let me return to the point I want to make. On average we (all of us) are living longer. Though divorce is common in many cultures, it is also true that marriages are lasting longer. I consider that a blessing……which comes with its own downside. Folks like you and me are becoming widows and widowers at an older age……left to face late-life without the enabling support of a life-partner……having to ‘carry on’ in a too-often lonely and isolated world.
Many of us decided years ago that we would not allow ourselves to end up in some sort of ‘senior care facility’……the ‘old folks warehouses’ we have long dreaded. I count myself among those hold outs.
Yet the folks I know who have taken that ‘senior facility’ route……no matter how reluctantly……have invariably gained a social environment that was too often missing in their ‘pre-warehouse’ life.
As you might have guessed by now, when I spend my too-lonely late-life hours dwelling at length on how to use the time I am allotted, the result is likely to have me rehashing my thoughts with Roma, creating extended conversations, something more than our daily visits.
Then, if the topic is urgent enough, there will be a few days, and semi-sleepless nights, assembling those thoughts, putting them on paper, replaying them for her, and finally posting them in these pages.
Of course I am hoping that my ramblings will be read, and even ‘Commented’ on, yet by the time they appear on this site the process will have served it purpose for me……recording my thoughts and taking part in our ongoing dialogue.
So go figure. Try to make sense of it. I am the guy who spent an October decade writing self-published Geriatric Adolescence books, a dozen of them, about fellows who were looking for a late-life ‘second chance.’
It was only after Roma’s exit that I wondered if those stories were the reason she thought I would be able to ‘carry on’ in her absence. If so she was wrong. Because by then I had realized that I was not a ‘second chance’ kind of guy.
When I pause to consider the stories I wrote, and what drove the late-life ‘seekers’ I depicted, I realize that their actions called for a special sort of boldness. One of the books was actually title October Bold.
But ‘bold’ is a relative term. My ‘bold’ may not look ‘bold’ to you. In the course of the last couple years I have come to understand that a handful of ongoing email/phone conversations suit me just fine, providing all the ‘boldness’ I was looking for.
When I finally realized that approach worked for me my natural instinct was to write a modest little book making that point. Turned out that Geriatric Adolescence managed to define the ‘bold’ that fits me.
Looking back, it seems like a late-life 'to-do' list ought to include taking the time to consider with feels like 'bold' to you in your October/November circumstances. Good luck with that.
