A CHAT WITH MY UNCLE

The Old Rusty Nail

AN E-JOURNAL FOR OLD PEOPLE

Russell Burton, an Old Person

This morning my uncle phoned.  In a way it was by mistake as he had gotten a phone call from someone with my area code.  It wasn’t me but I am glad that he phoned because we had not chatted for a few weeks.  We try to phone each other about once a month and yesterday I had planned to give him a call but it slipped my mind. It seems that more things slip my mind that did a few years ago.

I enjoy our chats because he is an interesting person who had several interesting careers including a few years with the federal government.  We laughed about that because his grade level with the government was always higher than mine in spite of the fact that I had many years more college than he.  His other jobs ranged widely all of which were executive-level positions.

Our chats are nondescript, that is we generally do not stick to one topic but today we got talking about being old and death.  Now those topics might be thought of as gloomy and in away I guess they are but none the less of interest to us old people. 

What got my attention and nearly blew me away was when he told me that his life changed when he turned 80 years of age.  For him that was twelve years ago.  Yes, he is but ten years older than me which happened because my father and his brother had different mothers.  My father’s mother died when he was about 8 years old.  His father remarried a much younger woman thus my uncle’s and mine relative young differential age.  I suppose he is really my half-uncle which never really sounded quite right.

I have written in this blog many times that I too thought my old age began when I was 80 years old.  He had never shared this experience with me before so it surprised me that we had the same feelings at the same age.  Certainly, this event enforces my theory that this is the age when we have outlived half of our chums so this is the beginning of another facet of our lives – you know old age.

We discussed this coincidence for some time with extremely similar experiences regarding our physical and mental changes.  Since we are men I wonder if this distinct change occurs in women and at the same age. I doubt it for women live longer than men and they age slower.  I asked a woman I play bridge with who is older than I by a few years.  She thought that she felt old when she reached 85.

Our conversation turned to death not our own but about the deaths of our friends.  One of his friends who was younger than he had recently committed suicide.  Apparently he was depressed about what could happen to him as he grew older.  I write the word ‘could’ not ‘would’ happen because we do not know what our future holds.  That is, his vision of old age could have been completely wrong not that it is great fun but I find it somewhat enjoyable for it is a new experience and it beats the alternative.

I recalled my recent experience of a friend dying which was quick and painless.  A death like we all wish we will have.

I find it interesting that death becomes more important than when I was younger.  Its importance has increase particularly and interestingly when I turned 80 years of age.  Like I have written before I look at the obituaries each morning in the newspaper noting especially their ages at death.  I see quite a few are my age which makes me wonder about me dying tomorrow.  I shrug off that thought as I feel fine and am physically and mentally active feeling like I will live forever.

What is sad is the number of people who have died at a much younger age.  Seeing the obituaries of people born in the 1940s and 50s makes me feel a mixture of sadness and just being plain lucky.  Of course everybody’s luck will come to an end someday.

So I wonder what these people my age died of as it is rarely mentioned in their life histories.  Regarding this life history thing I guess the longer the history the more important that person was during their life.  Or maybe the person writing it just enjoyed writing a long story.  My newspaper highlights one particular death with a news column type article at the beginning at the obituary section which is now know as ‘Life Tributes’.  I have often wondered how someone gets this special recognition not that it is important especially to the person who is being recognized for a good productive life.

My uncle had attended his friend’s memorial service.  He lamented that at his age no one would be around to go to his service which brought up an interesting thought.  What kind of remembrance do I wish to have, if any?  I write if any because at my age because by far the majority of my best friends are dead so who would attend?  It would be embarrassing to hold a memorial service and no one would show up.  Oh I suppose some of the offspring of my friends might show up, but can’t be sure.

If I would have some kind of memorial service it would be very short for my life story can not be of much interest to those attending.  Even my children and grandchildren would be bored for they already know all about me.

So, I close a rather gloomy article as death has a way of sucking all of the fun air out of the room.  Still, I enjoyed our phone chat, especially with the recognition that we both had the same changed feelings about life when we got to that magical age of 80.