One of the things that really upsets me is when I hear an elderly person talk with the acknowledgement their ‘time’ is coming to an end.
They don’t say it in a morbid way – just as a matter of fact.
Of course I understand why – I’m not totally stupid – but it still bothers me. A lot.
Now whilst most of you will think I’m referring to my Mum, you’re wrong.
Well, wrongish.
Recently I watched a documentary about a 78 year old woman who was building a modern house.
Whilst she fully intended to live in it, her purpose was more to leave a legacy for her children than to create something new for herself.
Now the house she was building was to have a copper roof ….
The thing with copper is that over time – especially when exposed to the elements – its colour changes,
After a few years it develops into various shades of brown and then a few years after that, it kind of goes a weird aqua colour.
I’m not doing it justice because it’s all quite beautiful … however this woman hated the idea of a ‘greeny-blue’ roof.
The host of the show said,
“Yes but you’ve got a lot of years of the colours you do like before that happens.”
To which she looked at him and replied,
“True, and I probably won’t even be here to see it by then.”
Now of course she’s being realistic but I find it so bloody sad – and yet I can’t really work out why it bothers me so much.
Well actually I can … which goes back to my Mum.
Even though my Mum is a very healthy 76, the fact is she’s 76.
To make it worse [for me], every now and then – when I talk about things in the future – she mentions, “If I’m still around then”.
Again, she’s not saying it to be morbid – far from it – but the fact she says it, reminds me of her mortality and the thing is, interms of close biological family [ie: not including Jill] my Mum is pretty much all I have got left.
Sure I have other ‘biological family’, but apart from my Aunt – Mum’s older sister – who I adore, I don’t really care much about the rest of them [the ones I did, have all died – how’s that for unfair] … so being reminded Mum won’t be around forever is quite hard to accept even though a lot of her family have a habit of getting to 3 figures!
I appreciate the practicality of it all – and I did say how talking about death is healthy – but it still doesn’t make it easy.
On top of all this is the fact that years ago I met a brilliant planner – Peter Stickels – who said something that has stuck with me …
“If you can’t feasibly double your age, you have to accept you’re heading towards the final phases of your life.”
OK so that is incredibly depressing [especially for him as he was 56 at the time] but the thing is that whilst I’m relatively young at 38, the fact the people around me are talking about their mortality is making me think about mine.
This is so not coming out properly … but then to be fair, I don’t know what the hell I’m trying to say.
So instead of talking myself round in circles, I’m going to shut up and tell Mum I know how important it is to live a full and varied life and that I love her very, very, very much!