Until 120

Last week I wrote a letter of condolence to friends who had lost their mother. She had been living in her own home, fully ambulatory and compos mentis. During her last illness, surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, she managed to say goodbye to each of them as she drifted in and out of consciousness. She was 100 years old. She had lived a good life and, if death can ever be said to be good, she experienced a good death too.

I never had the privilege of meeting her. But writing that letter prompted me to think about some of the people I have known who reached a great age living more or less independently in their own homes. Two of my aunts lived to be 99. I can't vouch for the mental acuity of one of them towards the end of her life - the last time I saw her, at her granddaughter's wedding, she smiled sweetly but said very little. The other aunt, on the other hand, my mother's twin, never lost her tart sense of humor nor her willingness to fence with those who called on her.

My wife's cousin, who lived to 101, complained two years before she died that she could no longer both swim and take a walk, as she had long done, if she also had a luncheon engagement on the same day. She was forced to choose one or the other. At her 100th birthday party, she commented that when people told her she hadn't changed, she knew they were lying. My brother then said that she was still one of the sexiest women he had ever met. Her immediate response was, "I never said I wasn't sexy."

A friend of my wife's parents continues as chairman of the Wall Street investment advisory and brokerage house he founded. He's now 104. Although one of his sons now runs the firm on a day-to-day basis, the old man, who goes to the office every day, still provides valuable counsel.

A good friend, who died last year, lived to be 97. At 95, he complained that when he got out of bed in the morning, he found himself "walking like an old man." I told him that he was entitled, at 95, to walk like an old man and what else did he expect? Stupid me, that was the wrong thing to say, and he was not amused. But this year I learned how he felt. The other day, I asked a friend how old her mother was when she died. Upon learning that she died at the age of 89, I said, "I used to think that 89 was old." My friend, still a comparatively young thing, laughed and said "but you are old!" I suppose she's right, but it doesn't seem that way to me except when I've reached the top of several long flights of subway stairs.

When my dentist wanted to crown one of my teeth a few years ago, I told him that the device didn't have to last for 40 years. In response, he told me about his grandfather, who, at the age of 92, worried that he'd outlive his money. His son, after examining the old man's finances, reassured him, telling him that he could live for the next fifteen years without making any changes in his expenditures. "Yes," replied the old man, "but then what?" Now I know how he felt too.

Judith Viorst, who published a slim volume of light verse on the occasions of her fiftieth and sixtieth birthdays, produced another on the occasion of her seventieth, I'm Too Young to be Seventy and Other Delusions (2005). She wrote that ninety is old, and maybe 80 is too, although she won't decide about that until she gets there. In the meantime, she said, let's drink wine, make love, and learn new things. Amen to that.

A common Hebrew toast, on the occasion of an elderly person's birthday, is "ad meyah ve'esreem," literally "until 120," the age at which Moses died on Mount Tabor, as he gazed upon the Promised Land below, in full possession of his faculties. When Judith Viorst reaches that age, may she be too young to be 120. So may we all.