The Gifts og Age

Since this is my birthday month, I want to post something by Steve Goodier-one of my favorite bloggers.

 

The Gifts of Age ~ Steve Goodier ~ 

I love young people. I feel the same way as Archbishop Desmond Tutu who once said, "I have the highest regard for young people. Young people are idealistic. They dream dreams about a better world." 

They not only dream dreams, they have the audacity to believe in those dreams and often enough enthusiasm to nurture them into something close to real life.

I love young people. What fun I could have "back in the day" – ridiculous fun. And what hope. I was changing so quickly and it seemed I could be limited only by my dreams. If I believed it might be possible, I felt I could make it so.

There are tremendous gifts that come with youth. Like optimism and the ability to change. When anything seems possible, more than a little of it becomes possible if one only believes enough and adapts quickly.  

And then we age. Please don’t hear a note of discouragement – it’s just that aging is something I am only slowly coming to embrace. It creeps up on a person like silent fog in the night; we awaken one morning in the midst of it and wonder how it got there.

We age, whether we choose to or not. And some people dread it. Singer Doris Day once said, "The really frightening thing about middle age is that you know you'll grow out of it." That fear can be all too real.

Some people dread aging. And some people deny it. They try to avoid the fact that they are growing older and their bodies are in decline. One woman who had ignored her failing eyesight for too long was asked, "How long have you worn glasses?"

"Since yesterday," she replied. "As I was baking some tollhouse cookies I picked up the fly swatter and killed four chocolate chips."

 Some people deny aging and live as if nothing has changed. And some people avoid it – or try to. They idealize youth and never become comfortable in their older, looser‑fitting skin. One man quipped: "A few years ago my wife started to wear tight jeans. I went out and bought a convertible. Then she bleached her hair. I took a lot of multiple vitamin shots. Just a few months ago, she had a face lift and a "tummy tuck." I got an implant. And that's the way it’s been for the two of us: side by side ‑‑ growing young together."

Since age can’t really be avoided, there are those, also, who learn to laugh at it. Humor won’t chase old age away, but laughter certainly makes it more bearable.

A parody of the musical hit "My Favorite Things" is making the rounds among oldsters. The song, inaccurately attributed to Julie Andrews, reminds us that it helps to laugh at what we can’t change.

"Maalox and nose drops and needles for knitting,

Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,

Bundles of magazines tied up in string;

These are a few of my favorite things"

You get the idea.

We may try to deny it or avoid it. We may dread it or learn to laugh at it. But unless an accident or illness robs us of the chance to grow old, we’ll all experience it.

Which is okay. For if youth has its gifts, I believe age does, too. When aged well, the idealism of youth is tempered now with solid experience. Youth’s enthusiasm is made more valuable when combined in old age with good judgment. And youth’s ability to become anything they can imagine, in old age takes the form of character; trustworthy and reliable – character so rich only decades of living could ever grow and refine it.

These are the gifts of age. They are gifts found in those who live their lives intentionally and well. They take a lifetime to acquire and they are precious beyond belief.









 

Sadie and Seymour #2

….continued

As Bonnie watched the geese, Hal watched Bonnie. He had brought her to his farm after their wedding fifty years ago. His young and muscular build made it easy for him to swoop her up into his embrace and carry her into her new home. He buried his face in her wild corkscrew auburn curls. Her azure blue eyes looked so bright he could see his reflection in them. Now after rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, her once lush locks hung wispy thin and battleship gray. Her eyes still held their blue color but now looked dull as if a curtain drawn across them blocked the light. Every time her disease went into remission, another tumor popped up elsewhere in her body.  She grew weary of the fight.

On evening, while they sat on the front porch and watched fireflies flit and listened to the sawing of insects, Bonnie turned to him.

“Hal, no more treatment,” she said. “It doesn’t prolong my life; it prolongs my death.”

Hal took her pale fragile hand into his knobby arthritic one, raised it to his face and kissed it. She stroked his stubby cheek. No words needed.

 Sadie and Seymour and their growing family stayed another winter. Bonnie got sicker and one day in March, with Hal lying beside her, his lips close to her cheek, his hand covering hers, she slipped away.

When the migrating geese landed on Hal’s pond that year, Sadie and Seymour and their offspring mingled with the others and took off on their flight to Mexico. His beloved Bonnie had died, and he knew the time had come to let the farm go. Every room he entered in the old house reminded him of her. He found himself reaching for her in his sleep only to grasp empty air. He hadn’t cleared out her closet, couldn’t bear to part with her clothing. Sometimes he held her dresses to his face to sniff her smell. But now her smell had faded from the cloth.  When he agreed to sell his farm, Hal insisted the pond be left intact.

The day after Hal stormed out of Franklin’s office, the phone rang in the old farm house.

Hal picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

Franklin said “I’ve got good news. The developer agreed to your provisions. There’ll be no dredging, emptying or filling. The pond will remain for the migrating geese in perpetuity.”

“Good, draw up the papers and I’ll sign,” Hal said.

He notified Sherman.            “You’ll have to move your horses. I’ve sold the farm.”

“No problem Hal. I wish you all the best,” Sherman said.

The builder mapped out parcels around the pond and sold each for excessive amounts of money because of the choice locale. Hal spent his last two years in a small cottage on Shinecock

Canal watching boats sail into the harbor.

Hal’s strength waned and his heart weakened. He had lost his will to live. On his last day, in his hospital bed, he breathed Bonnie’s name as he died. Suddenly a cacophony of noise came from outside. Nurses ran to the window to see what caused the racket. A flock of geese flew above the hospital. They circled in single file honking their thanks to their friend and benefactor. Then they peeled off one by one, dipped their wings in goodbye and led by Sadie and Seymour, flew back to Canada.

Sadie and Seymour

“You are not going to evict Sadie and Seymour.” Hal sputtered, jabbing his lit cigar at Franklin. The heavy ash plopped onto his polished cherry wood desk. Franklin resisted the urge to rebuke Hal and with a swipe of his hand, brushed the ashes to the floor.

“Hal, be reasonable. You can’t subsidize them forever.” Franklin said.

“You’re my lawyer and you have to do as I say. You have to put a provision in the contract for Sadie and Seymour and their brood.”

Franklin sighed. “But they only come here twice a year.”

Hal stood up and walked to the door. He turned and said. “If you don’t do this, the deal is off.” He slammed the door behind him.

Franklin hated to let a million-dollar deal go down the drain. He shouted after Hal. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll talk to the buyer.”

Hal Traynor had lived and worked his potato farm, on the east end of Long Island, for fifty years until the limitations of age forced him to give up farming. He let the fields go fallow. A horse breeder named Sherman Tyne knocked on the old farm house door one day.

“What can I do for you?” Hal said.

“I see your fields lay idle. Would you consider renting them to me for my horses?” Sherman said.

And so they struck an agreement. Sherman fenced the land making three ample fields. He grazed his mares in the corals until they became ready to breed. Then he moved them to his breeding farm four miles away. Hal and his lovely wife Bonnie enjoyed their senior years as country folk watching the horses, tending their small garden and stocking their large pond with water fowl, mostly ducks and a few white geese.

The farmers around them, their neighbors and friends, one by one, sold their land to out of town developers and moved to retirement homes. A local developer badgered Hal for years to sell his farm. The developer wanted to split it into individual parcels. Hal stubbornly refused.

“This land is my life, and I won’t sell.”

Meanwhile, a thousand miles to the north, Canadian geese prepared for their long journey from Canada to Mexico. They stretched their long black necks, flapped their wings and took off into the morning sky forming a perfect vee, honking their goodbyes to cold Canada.

Every year, the geese touched down on the pond at Hal’s place in Setauket, Long Island, to rest for a day or two, before resuming their migration. When Bonnie got sick three years ago, for reasons unknown, two of the Canadian geese stayed on Hal’s farm through the winter. Hal fed the geese and named them Sadie and Seymour.  Each morning the geese waddled up to the back door and tapped on the glass with their beaks to be fed. Then Hal got breakfast for Bonnie, and also for Sadie, and Seymour. In the spring two young goslings emerged, following their parents around on spindly rapid feet. Bonnie clapped her hands.

“Look Hal, aren’t they adorable? Let me feed them.”

The geese came within three feet of Bonnie as she coaxed them to feed from her hand. Finally Seymour ventured to take a chance, grabbed the bread from Bonnie’s hand, and quickly backed away. Through the summer, Bonnie grew weaker. Feeding the geese and watching the goslings grow became her biggest joy of the day.

….to be continued

Christmas 1963 #2

...continued

This happened on the Friday before Christmas, December 20, 1963. I continued on my way to the Long Island Rail Road station and boarded the train. 
Only one month since the assassination of President Kennedy and the heart-wrenching events of that week, a somber pall lay over the commuters.  People sat in their seats not interacting, all in their own thoughts. I thought about the man I’d tried to help and the suspicions of the policeman.  A second before the doors closed a tall man wearing jeans and a plaid jacket jumped on the train and grinned at the passengers.

             “Boy that was close. I almost didn’t make it. I’d be in trouble with the wife if I didn’t get home on time. I’m probably in trouble anyway because I’ve been drinking,” he laughed. 

            “Hey, it’s Christmas time. Let’s sing Christmas carols. ” Everyone ignored him. “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .” He pointed at one passenger who turned away.      

“On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...” He pointed to another passenger who buried his face into his newspaper. The man made his way down the car trying to get someone to respond to his singing. By the time he got to me, I decided to join him. “A partridge in a pear tree,” I sang. “Yea!” He grinned.

            “On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...”

            “Two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree,” I responded. We continued to sing and others around us joined in.

            Little by little, people put their newspapers and cares aside to join the singing. We sang and laughed and talked to each other. People from other cars came into our car to join the fun. As passengers got off the train at their stop, everyone called out “Merry Christmas.” We felt like a big family basking in the glow of the holiday season, thanks to this jovial inebriated working man who had the ability to bring us together. For me, it became the highlight of that Christmas.