HOW DID I GET HERE SO FAST?

The other day I was talking to someone at my daughter’s agency about how we seem to go from year to year very quickly. It is bad enough when the years go by so fast that 10 years ago seems like yesterday, and you are not so sure it wasn’t yesterday, and then you couple the fact that your oldest child has gray hairs, and so that means you have gray heirs!

My trouble is that my dog, Happy is aging along with me, and is feeling about as good as I feel. Yesterday, or was it ten year ago, she didn’t eat, or drink her water. She slept all day and seemed worn out from must have been a very hard day.

The hardest day that dog ever had was when we had an extra something to eat one day, and she had to put in some extra time begging. This cut into her day of sleeping and you could see the toll it took.

As for me, as it must be for you, aging is becoming aware that you are not who you think you are. It suddenly becomes harder to read a newspaper because you need help with the lighting, the magnification, and the arthritis that pervades your comfort! You soon discover that you can’t eat the things you used to enjoy, they come back to haunt you.

Of course, all your pleasures in life become abbreviated to the point that some of them you give up on all together, and soon part with them. Why? Usually it is because of the physical restraint that you must employ to try to enjoy them.

As a young man, I can recall how disappointed I would be if Dad or Mom said they couldn’t do this or that, while I could, wondering what the big deal was, it is so easy. Now, not only do I know what the big deal is, I’m starting to fold my cards!

My grandmother lived to a very old age, and my mom seems to be doing the same, I look at her and marvel that she can still do for herself, even though she needs to take better care of herself. The other day I was visiting her and as she got up to walk to the door with me so she could lock it, I noticed how hard it was for her to walk.

“Ma, where’s your walker?”

Looking at me crossed eyed, she says: “I DON’T OWN A WALKER.”

“Oh, so where is your cane?”

“In the closet.” (Of course, where else would it be you big dummy!)

“So when you walk in the closet, you use it?”

“LOOK, DON’T START WITH ME, THAT THING MAKES ME FEEL OLD AND DECREPID!”

Maybe, just maybe I should learn to shut my big mouth and not remind not only her, but myself that we are getting old.