OVER coffee at Hotel del Rio the other day, I confided to my friend Rod Jarumahum an “embarrassing” incident: I had met by chance – and exchanged pleasantries with – a former media colleague whose name I could not recall.
“Only after we had parted did Montessa’s name flashed in my memory,” I regretfully told Rod. “Sign of old age.”
“It’s okay,” Rod appeased me. “You have accumulated so much information that it takes time to recover a piece.”
I nodded laughing and sang a line from an old song where an old dad was telling his young son, “Look at me, I am old but I’m happy.”
In Philippine setting, why not? One of the blessings that Filipino senior citizens enjoy is the privilege of paying less for important things, especially food and medicine.
Let me share added thoughts on us the elderly.
Old people need not be discarded. Old but healthy men reflect deathless character and pricelessness – just like the old masters’ paintings, diamonds, old silverware, old furniture, old coins, old books, aged wine and vintage cars. Greece and Egypt thrive because of tourists who flock to see the ruins of past civilizations.
We don’t usually lament the loss of a new thing; but we cry over the breakage of an antique plate or flower base.
There are old books that are so packed with wisdom that they keep their authors alive in our hearts. Among them are the Bible and the immortal writings of old Greek philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and Socrates.
“Old” is an old word with a “young” undertone, derived from an Indo-European root that means “to nourish.” No wonder, in asking a child for his age, we say, “How old are you?”
Unfortunately, when compared to “new,” “fresh,” “young,” the “old” narrows its meaning to “stale,” “worn” and “dying.”
It is often only in old age that we cherish the memories of our youth. We love to look at our old pictures and share with the young the memories of the “good old days when we were young.” How we regret not having preserved most of our old photographs!
In the final analysis, however, whether young or old, dust we are and to dust we shall return. There could be no adventure without the transition from youth to adulthood. In fact, the young ones beg of us young once to tell them what adventures we have gone through.
After reading a book on Benjamin Franklin – whose picture appears on all US $100 bill bills – it surprised me that he was born to very poor parents. He worked hard and very patiently to be somebody. He was already 81 in 1787 when he was elected to the Constitutional Convention that would frame the Constitution of the newly-created United States of America.
Wow, I still have 12 more years to catch up with Franklin. His biography buoyed my spirit. Like Franklin, I write for a living in my senior years.
Time could be destructive, but it could toughen us as well. Expertise in a vocation or profession requires time. The old are called “old” not only because of aging but because of the contributions they have made to modern times.
The people who fear old age are those who think of it as gateway to the graveyard. But lest we forget, death does not choose between the old and the young.
As a popular saying goes, “In the end it’s not the years in our life, but the life in our years that count!” (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
