chiron

Don't do whatever you like -- like whatever you do. -- Unknown


AS WE LIKE IT

Aging is a complex issue and not really understood too well. All we hear about anymore is genetics, right living, and good healthcare. Personal belief also has a lot to do with what a human being can accomplish in life, psychologically and physiologically speaking.

Human beings are living longer now, despite all the hardships we have created for ourselves environmentally and psychosocially. If not for antibiotics and the benefits of modern healthcare, I am sure I would not be here now. Any number of serious infections in my life could have brought on my demise.

In reading your posted concerns on what another oldster takes, I thought of many older people I know who must have their "down side" in order to have their "up side." This is not to say that the supplements are not harmful when taken in quantity, or mixed improperly. In a sense, however, we are one and all our own experiment in life.

What many older people do is create a "negative crutch" in order to justify their need as a will to live, to endure and persist in aging to the max, if you will. My grandfather lived to be ninety-nine years old, and he told me that he was pronounced dead three times in his life as a result of work-related accident.

One story my grandfather told me had to do with hearing the company doctor pronounce him dead after a leveraging accident that knocked him out cold, where upon hearing the doctor's pronouncement, he just had to move his little finger to indicate that he was still alive.

My grandfather also told me that the news of his demise traveled so fast up the hill to the coal camp, that he just had to walk home that evening and show everyone on the hill that it just wasn't so. Apparently, it was a matter of personal pride and grandstanding on the part of "Old Granddad."

Visiting my grandfather as a very young man, he drunk me under the table after I had only three shots and three beers. My grandfather's stamina, his daily crutch, was "Old Granddad" 100 Proof, and he was pretty well saturated with the good spirit. Everyone attended to his need, including me, as needed. It was a matter of pride, the Old Man on the hill, who had his shot with his coffee in the morning and throughout the day, as needed.

My grandfather also told me more than once that his mother lived to be ninety-two. His fixation on this age mark was like a personal mantra to himself in that he kept reminding himself of his intention to live as long as possible. He made it a point of pride to tell everyone that his mother lived to be ninety-two. The point being that he was determined to match or better his mother's age. In affect, his belief to overcome was his End Game.

My grandfather was a hard rock coal miner whose idea of personal accomplishment included sticking it out as long as he could against all odds. Sometimes I think that he was just plain afraid to die and face up to his life's work, as arrogance, stubbornness, and just downright high spirited meanness.

Candidly considered, I sincerely doubt anyone will best his life mark any time soon in our family. In the End Game, it was a long-standing leg ulcer that brought his demise when he finally had to have his leg amputated for reasons of blood poisoning. My own father was following suit, and so mindset in his father's mark of accomplishment that he was so sure that his father would pull through the amputation. I remember telling my father that such an amputation at that age would kill his will and pride to live. My grandfather died three-weeks after the amputation, and nothing was ever said as to why he died by anyone.

In the game of aging, without our complaints, our crutches, and our resolution to overcome as we like, suffering our age would simply hold no moonshine in our lives. As once was told to me by another older man, a master trap and sheet instructor, a straightshooter, “Now that’s a horse of a different garage.”