Growing Old Gracefully???

A few years ago I heard Kenny Chesney singing a song on my car radio written by Casey Beathard, and Chris Allen Wallin called “Don’t Blink”. That song hit me in a particular way because of my age and the fact that I could remember so much of my life as though it happened yesterday. Life has gone by so fast that when I hear the expression of growing old gracefully I grimace.

I can’t say that I haven’t enjoyed life pretty much to the fullest because I have. I just took too much of it for granted. I have been happily married to the same woman for 57 years, I have children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, I have enjoyed much good health, rarely ever sick until I was 70. Then I had the misfortune to begin to get really sick. I spent almost a year in hospital, not all at once but on three or four different occasions in the same year. Four different ailments befell me in my old age over a period of a year. I finally overcame most of them but they have left me much older and weak.

As I sit and look back on my life which seems to have only started about a week ago, I wish I could go back and do it all over again. I most definitely would not take anything for granted and as far as growing old gracefully…I would fight every minute of it. A poem by Dylan Thomas sent to me by my youngest son says much about growing old.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

  

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears,
I pray.Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

The only advice I can give to the younger generation is: “No, don't blink, Don't blink, Life goes faster than you think So don't blink.”