More random thoughts on my journey following the death of my wife, Renee.

 As most of you know already, I am no longer young.  No one is more surprised by this fact than me.  It happened so fast!  At least, it seems like the years have just flown by.  Again, I know I am not the first, or the only person who has experienced this.  But I certainly never believed it when my parents, or other seemingly “old” people, told me this would happen.  Sure, it happened to them, but it wasn't going to happen to me.  I wasn't going to let it happen.  I was going to be the exception to the rule.  As one of my childhood friends continually reminded me, “Rules are made to be broken.” 

 Turns out, some rules are just not going to be broken.  Turns out, there are some rules to which there are no exceptions.  As Mick Jagger taught us, “What a drag it is getting old.” [See “Mother’s Little Helper”, from December, 1965]. 

 Still - you can’t really “be” old unless and until you start “feeling” and “acting” old, right?  Well, if “feeling” old means you have aches and pains of uncertain origins, I guess I qualify.  Waking up and getting the day started is always an adventure:  "Where will I hurt today?" 

And, if "acting" old means you constantly remember and talk about "the good old days", the "Glory Days" [see Bruce Springsteen's song from the 1984], again, I guess I qualify. As Bruce says, "time slips away, and leaves you with nothing, mister, but boring stories of Glory Days". Yep, that's me alright. [Oh yes- someone told me that another sure sign of being old is when you constantly refer to the lyrics from old songs, but I can't remember who told me this, and I'm not sure I believe them anyway.]

But it still doesn't seem right. If "acting" old means no longer "insisting that the world keep turnin' [my] way" [see Willie Nelson's song, "On The Road Again", from 1979], I don't qualify. I shudder to think about how much I desire that everything happen "my way".

And if "feeling" old means your heart and your spirit are telling you that you're old, then again, I don't qualify. The clear and consistent message I keep getting from my hear and my spirit is, "You still haven't matured, you still haven't grown up, you're still a kid." And yes, that is how I "feel" - like a kid who would much rather curl up with a box of popcorn and a "Star Trek" marathon than do his homework.

This past Sunday, I sat with my siblings and had the "Medicare talk". One of my sisters is 67 and is already there, one of my brothers has a wife who just turned 65, so they are already there. I will hit that magical age in October, so it's right there in front of me. I learned a lot, part of which is that there is still a lot left to learn, and a lot left to do - "homework", if you will. [But hey - I think I hear Captain Kirk calling; it's time to report for duty!] Seriously, the time is short to get this taken care of. Actually, the time is short to get anything taken care of. No matter what the subject might be, the time is just short.

Our conversation this past Sunday expanded from Medicare to other things connected to the aging process, one of which is the ubiquitous "Senior Discount" - available in many shopping and eating and entertainment establishments. Getting old might be a drag, but getting discounts because you're old - that's awesome! That, and wisdom, seem to be the best, and pretty much the only, perks of this whole "getting old" thing, though wisdom is apparently much more elusive than Senior discounts. To paraphrase Mark Twain, "you can't swing a dead cat without hitting" a Senior discount. But wisdom? Well, that's a different story entirely. Oh wait, now I remember. It's not wisdom that comes with getting old. It's "experience". And experience is quite a different thing than wisdom.

As we talked, it struck me that Renee would have absolutely loved taking advantage of "Senior discounts". For our entire life together, she was "The Queen of Coupons". She would search for them, she would track them down, she would hunt for them like a tigress stalking her prey. She would rejoice when she would capture a good BOGO, and we would celebrate together our good fortune. It was a rare thing indeed for us to go out to eat without some kind of a coupon. But the Senior discount - that was going to open up an entirely new level of adventure for her, and for us. It was something she was looking forward to.

But she never got there. She never got to enjoy the Senior discount. She wasn't even 60 when she died. I may think of myself as still being young, but she really was still young, much too young to leave.

And so, one of the things lost when she left was the joy of growing old together, like we had planned - the joy of comparing aches and pains and seeing which ones were better at predicting the weather, the joy of helping each other remember names and faces and where we left our glasses, the joy of cooking together as we danced around the kitchen, singing along to [you guessed it] old songs, and so many other silly little things that we could laugh about together. Sure, we had many years together, and we certainly both got older during that time. But we never really grew old together. And all of our planning and thinking and dreaming of how our lives would look when we were old, together, are just gone.

Nice thoughts, but not real, not anymore.

Ambrose Ramsey | Pastor and Shepherd