Who Wants To Be 80?

I'm 64. Mom made it to 91 and Dad 72, although his father made it to 98 and his brother to his mid 90s and sister to high 80s. Mom was ready to go once she hit 90. She wasn't seriously ill, but was basically bed ridden. She passed in October 2019, and I'm glad she didn't have to go through Covid isolation alone.

If I were to go tomorrow, I'd be content. I hope there are many more years, but I've lived a good life, my son is on his own in a different city and I'm no longer married.

Other than typical old man stuff -- high cholesterol, acid reflux, minor prostate issues -- I'm healthy. I hope to work as long as I can, mostly because a 30-year journalism career didn't exactly fill the retirement coffers.

My fear is dying alone and nobody knowing. I have a single friend who's a couple years older and we text frequently. If we don't hear from each other for a day, we call to make sure that the other is OK.

 

The genetics are what they are. We mostly joke about it. My daughter thanks my wife and I for passing on a risk factor for just about everything to her.

Appreciate the positive thoughts for my mother-in-law. They are recommending chemotherapy, which she is adamantly refusing. She keeps insisting that chemo killed her brothers (who both died from cancer).

Getting old sucks, but even then, it still beats the alternative.

 

Dying and nobody knowing does sort of sit in the back of my mind. That's why I am on super good terms with my great nieces. I have known two people in my life who went home on a Friday evening and died, and nobody missed them until they didn't show up for work Monday morning. I guess I don't mind dying alone as in no one around. Honestly, I guess I'd prefer it. I want to die outside looking up at the sky instead of fluorescent lighting and have enough realization that my last words are "Well, this sucks." I just want to be spared the indignity of nobody realizing I'm dead for a days and days.

 

Had a cousin who died that way a couple of years ago. I think it was about a week before they did a welfare check and found him. By all accounts it was not pleasant for anyone involved.

 

I find myself thinking about my family's longevity. Doctors tell me I'm in good shape despite having triple-bypass surgery in 2004. I did not have a heart attack nor any heart damage, just blockages.
My mom died at 73 (in 1990). She was overweight and smoked unfiltered Raleigh cigarettes like a damn chimney. Usually a cocktail at night. She was blind, which limited her activity, accounting for her weight. She beat cancer twice. Frustrations because of her blindness probably explain her suffering a severe stroke and dying. What do I think? I have to live another year to surpass her.
My dad died at 96 (in 2013). He had horrible joints (which I inherited), especially ankles. Yet he pretty much walked from Normandie to Berlin. He was in pain, but his organs were fine. He had a very bad hip, but in his late 80s-early 90s, doctors feared he wouldn't survive hip replacement surgery, so it was just anti-inflammatories. He fell down and broke his back -- sacrum, the second area up from the bottom. No surgical process for that. He lasted 5 days in pain. What do I think? I have to live another 24 years to surpass him. Not likely.
My brother is 77. He is blind, too (the vile condition is called Retinitis Pigmentosa and runs rampant through my mom's side of the family. I do not have it.). He got a medical discharge from the Navy (nuclear subs) in 1974 as his vision started to deteriorate, worked at the post office for 30 years, carrying a route for a good portion of that time until his vision got so bad they moved him to a position in the office. He has had lots of medical issue, including congestive heart failure, due to being overweight. He had a heart attack two years ago, and ensuing bypass surgery, but has survived that. What do I think? After he dies, I have to live another 5 years to surpass him. It leaves my wondering. I just don't know.

 

This week I'll be seeing my great-aunt. She turns 106 in August. She still lives in the same five-bedroom home she's been in since the early 1950s. She crawls around her garden during the day, bakes, writes poetry, sews, knits, researches genealogy and just finished writing a history of the town I grew up in. She has hundreds of grandkids/great-grandkids/great-great-grandkids/nieces/nephews/great-nieces/great-nephews, etc., but last year I was on her porch and my mom was talking about something and said, "I think it's June 18th," and my great-aunt replied two seconds later that that's just two days before my birthday. Her mind is as sharp as ever and she doesn't have a gray hair, despite never dyeing it. Last Thanksgiving me and mom popped by her house the night before and she came running in from the kitchen and said, "I was just finishing up peeling all the potatoes," and her table was already set for the 20 or so people coming over the next day. She's about 4 feet tall by this point and she's the most remarkable person I know.

Alas...she married my grandpa's twin so I don't have her genes. But I have definitely learned lessons from her on her outlook on life and maybe that will help me make it to 80 and in decent shape.

 

My stepdad, who was a hearty fellow, HS dropout, Navy vet, electrician for 40 years passed at 88.

My biological donor lasted to 85.

My mom is as vibrant today as ever at 85, she has a more active life than I do, she's doing 4 cruises and trips to NY and NO this year alone! Her sister made it to 92, her oldest sister is going strong at 98.

I had 3 grandparents make it to over 90.

I'm 61 and want to go way beyond 80. I want to see my kids hopefully give my wife and I the opportunity to be grandparents. I want to continue this love affair I have with my wife of 28 yrs. I enjoy life and want to continue to do so. The key to life IMHO is to stay active, physically and socially (eat better and get sleep).

 

My absolute goal is to go out standing on the beach staring down a Cat 5 hurricane with a beer in my hand on Sept. 27, 2071 - my 100th birthday.

My female ancestors have done pretty well in terms of longevity. My male ancestors not so much: both my grandfathers died at 62. I had one great grandfather and one three-great grandfather die in their 40s. To be fair, great got typhoid and died; three-great was so messed up from starvation in Vicksburg he didn't last too long.

 

A friend I used to go to church with lost both her parents to Covid within the first couple of months of quarantine and did not get to see either of them in their nursing home before they passed. I’m not entirely sure she has recovered emotionally.

 

I think my mom knew the end was near. She lived about a two-hour drive from me and I'd visit every other month or so. A couple weeks before she died, my brother called and said mom wanted to give me some money, but I had to come and get it. She would occasionally have money deposited into our accounts, but I'm convinced she wanted to see me one more time before she died and knew the money would get me there on short notice.

 

I've lived basically my entire adult life beside my parents. It was a blessing and a curse. I always had a fabulous relationship with my folks. They never really messed in my business, but with my dad some days I just wanted to be left the hell alone. Especially after he retired and got older, some days I'd come home from work, and he'd be sitting on his front porch waiting for me with a list of things he'd thought up all day for me to do.
It's funny now, but it wasn't at the time. They had a water line leak after he had gotten wheelchair bound. It was November or December, and I was down in a hole, freezing, and covered in mud from my head to my hips. My dad could see out the front door and every five minutes was calling me to tell me how I should be trying to fix it. I finally lost my shit, and while I don't know what I went to the door and said, I'd say murder was part of it.
The next day my mom told he he whined that he just couldn't talk to me anymore. She said, "Well, you're aggravating the hell out of him while he's trying to fix the water. Leave him alone."

 

My parents are 80 and 81 and have been quite active considering they spent most of their lives working very long hours (Dad as a bus driver; Mom in retail) for many years. Mom retired in her late 60s after corporate closed her store in the mall.

Dad didn’t retire until he was 73 after his bus was rear-ended by a car and he needed back surgery. After sitting out a few months recovering, he decided he didn’t feel like going back to work.

The big concern was whether or not they would drive each other crazy by being home together all the time. And while they do still bicker a lot, they also get out a lot in the community. They’re active with our county’s Office of the Aging; they help out with our synagogue’s charity work, they take senior tai-chi classes at the library; they’ve become snowbirds and head to Florida in the winter and seem like they’re having a lot more fun in retirement than they did when they were working. And they deserve it.

They have their share of health issues. Dad had bypass surgery a few years back, had complications, almost died and he needed to be zapped with the paddles to come back to life. Mom was never really physically active, but seems OK, although she’s lost most of her hearing, and even struggles when she has her hearing aids in. She sometimes gets frustrated when she can’t hear and loses her temper.

As for me, I’d like to be able to retire in my mid-60s, and hope to live as long as I can. I do find myself sometimes wondering who would be at my funeral if I would pass now, out of curiosity more than anything. I never was very active when J was in newspapers, but now I’ve been trying to make it up by going to the gym 2-3 times a week, and doing some rec sports in the town next to mine.