As I write, here at 73, I’m down one breast, a toe, a tooth, my tonsils, my uterus, the hearing and balance nerves in my left ear, the crisp vision that intact macula provide, and part of my original esophagus. And the orthopedic guys can’t wait to trade out my original knees for new models. Obviously nothing vital to my survival. Frustrating losses, inconvenient for sure, but not life-threatening. It’s fair to say that the older I get the less I worry about my chest looking balanced. My uterus has long since been irrelevant, though I missed its contributions to my sexuality for a decade. I’m better off with my rebuilt gullet than the old one. I miss, though, that steady, sturdy second-nature navigation of the world. I never want to lose the skies and light and mountains of central Montana, all the nuances of Rodney Crowell’s songs, or conversations with friends that send me off to new books and surround me in caring.
This fine May morning I am at once well and mostly whole and at the same time on the downslope to death. At most twilights, I am closer to the moments when my heart and brain will lose their elasticity, their ability to flood my body with blood, to spark another thought, to animate my legs across a room, to see and hear a day begin, to breathe in our clear air, to feel the silk of Simon’s coat.
So how do I live the contradiction between planning my next trip and wrapping up the legal and material proceedings of my life? Am I failing or flourishing? In truth, there are few full recoveries these days from each new ever-so-ordinary mishap and malfunction of age. What’s an honest, sturdy, useful self to be —-to – to be in this certain brew of going and growing?
A remembering self for one. A share of my losses came by chance. The ocular genes I inherited from my parents. My mother’s bunions. My father’s anxious nature and the toll it took on my esophagus. The roulette wheel of cancer—false positives, primitive services, bad timing.
I earned other losses: the 40 pound bags of feed I toted into the garage for our warren of rabbits and the enormous bundles of newspapers they needed for pooping and peeing. The miles of marble and terrazzo and concrete I walked in D. C. – home to subway to office buildings and return in high heels. The hours I spent standing on the Gettysburg battlefield. Saturdays kneeling to weed. The cobbles of Florence on a windy, wintry tour. The Acropolis climb that claimed the last of my knee cartilage.
Translated into the experiences I’ve lived, a few cranky joints and a lopsided bosom become badges of honor or at least sweet welcome for memories of astonishing chapters that I forget from day to day.
Sharing my life and casualties becomes another useful strategy. Without savoring misfortunes or competing for worst calamity. I am blessed with companions who get on with projects and activities, book reviews, political furies, gossip, grand meals, and out loud amazement at the complexities of universe. But they all come to a quiet place of empathy in the face of their losses and mine and those of our friends. No drama, no false bravado but companionship and practical action.
I’ve downloaded an app on my phone called “We Croak.” Five times a day it announces itself unbidden and offers pithy quotations on dying and living. The Bhutan theory behind it is simply that we live more fully if we look headlong at death. My hospice volunteering holds me in the same reality.
Six hundred words later I am where I began: living the contradictions. Taking the arm that’s offered me on stairs; going to that favorite music festival for a day not a weekend; revising the list of belongings that Em and Amanda can divide between themselves; laughing with as many people and in as many situations as I can find. But more than anything building days on the dazzling, humbling, astonishing memories of what I’ve been able to live and am able to live in this Rubic’s cube of a universe. And always, always taking a moment to watch the mountains and skies that frame my life. ©
