Grandpa can’t mow
As a child I remember that every Sunday afternoon my mom, dad and my siblings would drive to our grandparents’ house a few miles away. Dad sometimes mowed the lawn for his parents with their hand-operated mower.
We kids might be given a Coke with ice, which was a real treat, and then in the evening we would watch Walter Cronkite announce the news.
Grandpa got around with a cane, and we kids were told to give a kiss to grandma. It seemed that her face was a soft mass of mush, and this sign of affection was not especially welcomed by me.
But these experiences were our initiation into old age and what it means. Older people cannot mow their own lawns; their skin sags and wrinkles; and they cannot run around as we did as children.
Difficulties embraced
That’s why current political movements around the country pushing for assisted suicide are such a disappointment. Old age is an opportunity to show the younger generation that there is more meaning to life than eating, drinking and making merry. There is value in putting up with one’s suffering, in enduring the pains of old age, in showing the younger generation that patient endurance of life’s difficulties is worthwhile.
Solon, the ancient Athenian lawgiver, described life in ten stages. In the last stage, he says,
“When nine such periods have passed,
His powers, though milder grown, still last;
When God has granted ten times seven,
The aged man prepares for heaven.”
So, let us find meaning in the limits of old age. It has a purpose which is not always easily seen.