| Once we are no longer young - and therefore no longer immortal - most of us spend some time considering how best to live so that when the time comes to die, we can do so without regrets. For this important task, we have two great human resources: the elderly and the dying. Yet we seldom avail ourselves of their insights. That's generally because we don't want to impose on the former or disturb the latter. (Or, worse, we are naive enough to believe they don't have anything to offer.) In my experience, most seniors are delighted to share what they know - and are disappointed that they're so rarely asked. As one elderly woman insisted, "My epitaph will be 'Once Again I Was Not Consulted.'" As we grow older, we gain not just wrinkles and gray hair but also knowledge and wisdom forged in the crucible of experience. You can't log several decades of life without seeing a lot, hearing a lot and picking up plenty of emotional scar tissue. Along the way you develop not just perspective but understanding. A life fully lived includes its fair share of triumphs, failures, temptations, traumas, disappointments, false friends and broken hearts - not to mention the pleasures and tribulations of parenthood. By the time we reach a certain age we discover - usually through trial and error - what works and what doesn't. We have a better sense of what's valuable and enduring - and what isn't. We may even have a few thoughts on how to grow old gracefully. Many find an ally in humor. Phyllis Diller claimed she was so wrinkled she could screw her hats on. Author and spiritual teacher Ram Dass decided he loved his wheelchair, calling it his swan boat. One impish resident of an assisted living facility noted that "if you are an old man and you go into a bar wearing pajamas, people will buy you drinks." And in 1987, Mathilda Jones, a feisty 98-year-old spinster, told the Houston Chronicle that she wanted no male pallbearers at her funeral. "If men could not invite me out when I was alive, they're not going to carry me out when I'm dead." |
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