Growing Old

Oldies... revisited...

Earlier this week I indulged in a humorous piece on growing old. It was in no way intended as an oblique way of ranting about my age or of lamenting the passage of time. For me, “old” is not a four-letter word that has somehow lost a letter along the way. I do not wish to hide my age, nor am I nostalgic about a golden past that is no longer.

My past is not gone. I have integrated every layer of it. I am still the little boy who used to spend his days exploring the forests, creeks, and lakes of what is now the Gatineau Park and was then our playground. I am still the youth who loved to read and learn. I have never left behind the young man who awkwardly started relationships and slowly discovered how to love. I remain the father of two beautiful young girls and the husbands of the amazing woman who married me when I was 23. I have never stopped being a teacher even though I have not been in a classroom for more than 20 years. I am all of the experiences, the friendships built over time, the joys and pains, the successes and the failures, the gains and losses that have been my teachers for over 70 years.

Why in the world would I want to give that up to return to a time that is now gone? Nor do I wish to stop time. I am not "getting old", I am "growing old" and the operative word here is the first one! I am grateful for the “old man” that I have become and for the time that is left to me so that I can grow even more.