Are You Getting Any Younger?

My wife and I - more my wife than I - have been dealing with the sobering reality that her parents are getting old and will soon need special care.  The past few weeks have been filled with visits to old age homes and medical specialists, facing inconvenient facts and assessing a staggering variety of different care scenarios.  It's really got me thinking about life and the fact that even the best of us have to get old.

When I was 18, I went to Switzerland to pay a final visit to my grandfather.  I'd never gotten to know my maternal grandparents as well as my paternal ones and to this day think it a pity. Having suffered from Parkinson's Disease for much of his life as a senior he was now in the frail care unit of a local old age home.

Maybe I was young and naive - but I can still remember the incredible shock of being surrounded by all those frail people, many tortured by dementia; many not quite alive but not quite dead either.

What lingers was the memory of an old metal locker which held every earthly belonging that remained in my Grandfather's name.  This was a man who had been a prominent and influential builder and as such, a respected member of his community.  He and my grandmother had owned a lovely home in the beautiful Bernese Oberland,  citizens of one of the world's most affluent societies. And while all this had at least given him decent care in his old age (something not many ageing people get in this country), all he had to show for it now was an old metal locker.

Now please don't hear what I'm not saying.  The seeming pathos of his final days was in no way a reflection of the way he'd lived his life.  Hans Stettler was a loving father and a loyal husband.  A man of substance and integrity.  Not only is he fondly remembered but his descendants are living in the legacy of a life well lived.

What I am saying is this:  How differently would I live my life if I was less fixated on the so-called prime of my existence - and was instead, perhaps only just occasionally, haunted slightly by the sobering and countervailing reality of an impending twilight too?  Was the writer of Ecclesiastes similarly troubled?

"Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, 'I find no pleasure in them'"

In, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", F.Scott Fitzgerald depicts a character who is born as a wizened old man but who gradually gets younger as his life progresses.  It's an intriguing concept and somewhat resonant with the message which scripture has for us who believe:

"Though outwardly we are wasting away, Inwardly we are being renewed day by day"

So sobering as old age can be, I find it amazing that in right relationship with God I can embrace my temporality, knowing that with every day closer to the grave, (and as such closer to eternity), I am actually getting younger and not older.

(Of course, when Hollywood got its hands on the Benjamin Button story it missed the point entirely.  Instead of getting wiser as he "grew younger", our hero exhibits all the characteristics you'd expect from a callow and oversexed youth).  How much more impact would the story have had if instead he'd grown in maturity and integrity as he approached his "birth"?

Still, the story is useful at many levels.  Soren Kierkegaard said:

"Life can only be understood backwards - but should be lived forwards"

Check out this amusing advertisement for a gaming console - it is pretty light-hearted but still manages to support the point (though I don't agree with the final call to action!!)

As my wife and I begin to contend with the so-called "burden" of ageing and ailing parents I find myself more and more chastened by the reality that my own time on this planet is "but a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes".  As the Psalmist wrote (Psalm 103)

"As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more"

But mercifully he does not stop there (and upon this we hang our hope)

"But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children - with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts"