Feeling left behind? -– Rock The Wrinkle

There’s a lot of great things about growing older.

But there’s some tough stuff as well, like losing more people every year. People in your family. A spouse. Friends. Co-workers and past acquaintances.

Whether it’s the finality of death or a phone call that tells you someone has a terminal disease.

That just can’t be.

She’s not old enough.

He was just about to retire.

We went to school together.

She’s younger than I am.

How old does that make me??

It’s natural to feel some fear when you get news like this. It’s also natural to take a hard look at yourself, and then feel guilty because it’s supposed to be about them, not you.

Yet it is about you…and me…and how strange it is to age on the outside and yet still feel 25, 35, 45 on the inside.

I had a 93-year old neighbor once who was legally blind but every bit as alive and involved as she had always been. Her smile was a welcome sight every day. Yet she confessed to me that it was getting harder and harder because she had outlived everyone…her friends, her post loves, her anchors. I didn’t get it totally then, but I’m starting to now.

It feels like we’re all in lifeboats bobbing up and down at sea, holding hands, getting through all the storms and high waves together. Then more and more of our fellow life travelers fall in the water, disappearing, and the chain is not as strong as it used to be. Hey now, hang on a minute.

We’re all supposed to get through this together. We’re supposed to make it to the other side together. Don’t leave me!

It’s even hard when famous people die, if we’ve identified with them our whole lives and they’ve become a part of how we experience each day. A singer who helped us escape the rigors of teenage angst. A sports figure that inspired us to work out harder because he or she never gave up. An author whose words pulled us through a life crisis.

Now they are gone, and we are left to fend as best we can. It can make me feel more exposed and vulnerable at times. And yet, I’m guessing what’s really happening is we are left with the essence of who we are…and sometime’s that a good thing. To “meet” ourselves without any filters or escape hatches.

All the people we have known, loved, liked, respected, or even disliked help shape who we are…and now as boomers and beyond, who we have become. But they are just part of the picture.

Depending upon your belief, you may take solace in that you will remain connected with them for eternity, that this is not a final goodbye. (That’s my belief, and in a few cases, I’m ready to really make sure they understand what they meant to me!) Knowing that can help ease the pain, and underscore how tight some bonds can be.

Here’s some nice words from the late poet A.R. Ammons:

In View of the Fact

The people of my time are passing away: my wife is baking for a funeral, a 60-year-old who

died suddenly, when the phone rings, and it’s Ruth we care so much about in intensive care:

it was once weddings that came so thick and fast, and then, first babies, such a hullabaloo:

now, it’s this that and the other and somebody else gone or on the brink: well, we never

thought we would live forever (although we did) and now it looks like we won’t: some of us

are losing a leg to diabetes, some don’t know what they went downstairs for, some know that

a hired watchful person is around, some like to touch the cane tip into something steady,

so nice: we have already lost so many, brushed the loss of ourselves ourselves: our

address books for so long a slow scramble now are palimpsests, scribbles and scratches: our

index cards for Christmases, birthdays, Halloweens drop clean away into sympathies:

at the same time we are getting used to so many leaving, we are hanging on with a grip

to the ones left: we are not giving up on the congestive heart failure or brain tumors, on

the nice old men left in empty houses or on the widows who decide to travel a lot: we

think the sun may shine someday when we’ll drink wine together and think of what used to

be: until we die we will remember every single thing, recall every word, love every

loss: then we will, as we must, leave it to others to love, love that can grow brighter

and deeper till the very end, gaining strength and getting more precious all the way. . . .

Life is precious. Grab it with all the might you have and celebrate your spirit, your soul, and your passion for living. Do it for yourself, and those who have moved on to a higher being. Rock that wrinkle!!!