"Do not go gentle into that good night" ... "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" (1)
I just spent almost 90 minutes looking for a cartoon that I posted some time ago. It showed a couple standing in front of an outlandishly painted trailer wearing equally outlandish clothes with a caption something to the effect . . . "retirement.The time we're free to embarrass our children." It would be much funnier if I had a copy, but . . . oh, well. Nevertheless, be advised youngsters . . . that is all of you fifty and younger . . . that we're not really trying to embarrass you. We just refuse to go gentle into that good night.
In the past I thought that saying that someone was "aging gracefully" was a compliment. Now I have decided that it is anything but a compliment. I now realize that the only way to age gracefully is to give in to growing old and attempt to maintain some sort of decorum where decorum is translated 'be quiet, sweet, smile and do and look like what everyone thinks is appropriate for an old person.' No way! Who wants to be graceful if it means giving up. I am going to be anything but graceful. I still remember a cousin who said of my Mother (who was running and biking well into her 80s and had a boyfriend younger than me) "Aunt June, you need to act your age." How sad to think that way!
"Rage, rage against the dying of the light." The Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, wrote the poem 'Do not go gentle into that good night' for his dying father and it is considered one of his best works. Of course, he was bold enough to state what we all really feel but seem embarrassed or afraid to admit. Rage! Rage! None of us wants to die. Unlike other periods of our lives, the only conclusion of the old age period is death. Some of us use religion to try to comfort ourselves - trying to convince ourselves that we will either come back or go to 'heaven'. Others try to act brave and accepting. Even Buddhism, which teaches us that we should prepare for death, acknowledges that no one wants to die even if we're not having very much fun. Scientists call it survival instinct.
According to Buddhist Lama Surya Das there was a Japanese Zen master who, on his death bed, said "I don't want to die." When his students pressed him for some last words of wisdom he is reported to have said "I really don't want to die." (2)
Perhaps at first I didn't think about my burst of physical activity as being raging against the dying light. In fact, I would have to admit that I wasn't really aware of it as such until many months after my wife of 43 years died in 2011. I didn't start running until I was 62 and ran my first race the day before my 63rd birthday. By the end of 2011 I was doing as many as 18 half and full marathons a year and started running trail ultras - trail runs of over 40 miles. I bought a hat that said "Some day I won't be able to do this. Today isn't that day." Traveling the country in a vintage pop-up trailer, I wrote "Don't stop living before you die" on the side in large letters. I wrote it in Irish so people would have to ask what it said. While at a marathon in Key West, Florida I decided that I wanted to become a certified scuba diver. I finished my certification just before my 66th birthday and finished my master diver certification at the age of 68.
I met Pamela Smith when I was 67. She is 8 years my junior but was forced to give up doing triathlons because of arthritis. I introduced her to scuba and she introduced me to biking and kayaking. I celebrated my 68th birthday in the wilderness of northwestern Montana with her where we worked as volunteers for the National Park Service at Glacier National Park and lived in a 16 foot vintage camper trailer. During our 80 days of service we hiked over 450 miles, biked 300 miles, kayaked almost 30 miles. In all, we traveled almost 12,000 miles together having one adventure after another. It was then I realized that I was truly alive and determined that I wasn't going to grow old gracefully. I realized that I'm bound and determined to rage against the dying of the light and live and seek adventure until I can do it no longer.
I would speak to the children and the parents separately.
Children, don't inadvertently make your parents even older by being over protective. We have no idea how many years we may have. Let them be happy and adventuresome. Encourage your parents and support them. If they want to do their first sky-dive at 80, go cheer them on. Why would you discourage them because they might get hurt when they could have a stroke or heart attack and end up in a nursing home or die tomorrow? I spent almost 25 of my 39 years of psych practice with patients in long-term care. There we call it "quality of life". Which represents the greater quality of life: (a) dying while participating in an adventure of which you dreamed, or (b) avoiding accidental death and sitting in a nursing home waiting to die?
Now, I'm not talking about being foolhardy or reckless. I want to live. So I'm going to be careful. I'm old and a bit more brittle, so I'm going to be extra careful. But there's a difference between taking all precautions and not doing it because you're old and you might get hurt. I'm really proud of my children. When I started running wilderness trails and announced my first big wilderness run through the Ozark Mountains one of them wrote to the others "are we going to let him do this?" Thankfully the answer was evidently 'yes' since they supported me, wished me well, and gave me a ResQLink for Christmas. That's a device that not only puts out the common distress signal but has a GPS link to satellites which are monitored 24/7 by 200 different countries.
Parents - old guys, don't stop living because you're old. Don't stop living because of physical limitations. I realize that many people are not as fortunate to be as physically active as me. But most people I meet do not know that I was diagnosed with arthritis at the age of 32. Pamela and I both have severe arthritis. We merely adjust our activity to maximize our abilities. Running across the Badlands has given way to trekking the Rockies. So maybe you can't go trekking through the mountains but you might be able to walk or take a wheelchair through your local botanical garden. Maybe you can't go white water rafting but you might be able to go to Disney and ride the rides ... even if you have to enter through the wheelchair entrance. Just don't stop doing ... don't stop raging!
"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Even if you are totally convinced that there is a life after earthly death, you owe it to yourself to make the most of this life. American Journalist, Hunter S. Thompson (born 1937) once said, "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!" (3)
May your ride be long and exciting!
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(1) Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) first published in 1951.
(2) Das, Lama Surya (1997) Awakening the Buddha Within. Broadway Books. New York.
(3) Hunter S. Thompson. Born July 18, 1937, Hunter Thompson was one of the "most spectacularly outrageous journalists" of modern time. This is one of 509 quotes. No date was given.
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