Statistics and Sportscars

My last post described a new website that tells elderly persons the chances that they will die within a given number of years (eprognosis.org).   Did I want to know my own odds?  Of course.  But I entered the site with some trepidation.  First of all, I had to assert that I’m a medical care professional.  The assertion is not checked and is thus an implicit invitation for laypersons to enter the site, but even so lying is not pleasant.  Second, I was afraid of what I might find.  The site was presumably locked.  Would I be like Bluebeard’s wives, unable to resist unlocking the forbidden door? 

And after all, if I found that my chances of living much longer were small, would I change my behavior in any way?  Would I stop flossing my teeth?  Would I eat as much ice cream as I wanted?  I probably wouldn’t buy a red sports car, that classic response to crises of masculine aging, because I can no longer pretzel myself into one.  But would I stop exercising?  Most likely I would continue to live just as I do now, in the knowledge that after all the indices are fallible and even if I had, say, a 80% chance of dying in the next four years, there would still be a 20% chance that I won’t.  So what would be the point of finding out?  Why did Bluebeard’s wives unlock that door?

But I did enter the site and as I did so I figured that if the statistics disturbed me I could discuss them with my doctors and learn what if anything I should be doing to improve my odds or, if that’s not possible, to tell them my wishes for end of life care. 

This is what I found out.  The Lee index gives me a 20%-28% chance of dying within the next four years.  Perhaps I should have stopped there.  But, no, I kept poking around in the closet.  The Schonberg index gives me a 63%-73% chance of dying within the next five years and an 86% - 96% percent chance of dying within the next nine years.  The difference between the Lee and Schonberg indices lies not only in the length of the period predicted but also in the factors that are considered, with the Schonberg indices including more debilitating factors than the Lee index. 

Well, I’ve already done well to reach 80, and after all the chances are 27%-37% that I’ll manage to reach 85.  As an old boss of mine used to say, that’s better than a hole in your shoe.  Still, I looked for another opinion.  I found one in the USA Today article about these indices http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2012-02-19/Do-seniors-really-want-to-know-life-expectancy/53158420/1.  It reported that Dr. David Reuben, head of geriatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine, is working on an index that gives a "firm" prediction of longevity.  In a version published in 2010, he found that “a high-functioning 80-year-old man can expect 7.2 more years.”  Since I consider myself “high-functioning,” I can, according to that provisional index, reasonably hope to reach 87.  Not content to leave well enough alone, however, I turned to an eprognosis.org link to a non-medical actuarial calculator for life expectancy.  It told me, after I completed its questionnaire, that I have a life expectancy of 90.2, with 75% chance of reaching 85.9 and a 25% chance of reaching 93.9.  These last predictions are no doubt overly optimistic in my case, but I'll take them.  And if there's at least a 50% chance that I'll live ten more years  (so much more comforting than the Schonberg index that gives me an 86%-96% chance of dying within the next nine years), then perhaps I should I should take up yoga so that I can enter and exit a sports car with grace.

PredictingThe Big D

“How long do I have, Doc?”  That’s the first sentence of a recent article in USA Today.   My daughter, a palliative care social worker and an unfailing source of good ideas for posts, alerted me to it  (http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2012-02-19/Do-seniors-really-want-to-know-life-expectancy/53158420/1) The article describes a new website (eprognosis.org) that offers various indices predicting longevity for the elderly.  Although the site, developed by researchers at the University of California-San Francisco, asks you to identify yourself as a medical care professional (without verification) in order to gain access to the indices, more than a half million people visited the site within the first five weeks of its launch.  It’s unlikely that all of them were physicians.

The developers of the website hope that it will stimulate discussion between physicians and elderly patients about life expectancy, a discussion that many physicians avoid initiating.  But patients and their families know that life is finite, and a discussion of their chances of survival for a given number of years can help guide decisions as to the use of various tests, procedures, and operations.  Does it make sense, for example, for an 86-year-old woman to undergo a mammogram?  Normally the test is not recommended for a woman that old because she is more likely to die of something else before she dies of breast cancer.  But if the chances of her living for many more years are good, because she is still in excellent health, then the test might be beneficial.  At any rate, elderly patients are usually glad to learn that they need undergo no more colonoscopies. 

The indices present the chances of mortality within a given number of years, using information such as the patient’s age, history of smoking, presence of various diseases, body mass index, number of hospitalizations within the past year, and ability to carry out various tasks independently.  The indices are specific to given populations of elders: those in the general population, those in nursing homes, and those in hospitals.  Three indices, all for elders in the general population, are relevant for me, the Lee index, which predicts the odds of mortality within the next four years, and two Schonberg indices, one predicting the chances of mortality within the next five years, the second predicting the odds of death within the next nine years. 

Do I want to know what the odds are for myself?  You bet.  I’ll let you know what I find out in my next post.

Fathers and Sons

“I wish I could tell my father,” was among my first reactions to the news that one of my books, published a long time ago, was being translated into Chinese.  My father died in 1977, long before I had even conceived of the book.  But I’ve had a kind of continuing one-sided conversation with him ever since he died.  Had my mother lived a normal life span, I might have had such conversations with her as well, but she died young, more than 60 years ago, so it’s my father who is more often in my thoughts. 

When I wished that I could tell my father, it was because I knew the news would have pleased him, just as I’m pleased when one of my children announces an accomplishment.  Whether or not I deserve any credit, I feel that their attainments reflect well on me.  After all, I helped to form them.  So it must have been with my father.  But my sadness at not being able to tell my father the news reflected more than his inability to take pleasure from it.  I was also sad because I could not add to my stock of his approval. Forty-five years after he died, I still want his approval, even though I’m now older than he was when he died.  I don’t think I’m unusual in this respect.  Sons want their fathers’ approval and that desire remains alive long after their fathers have died.  No matter how old we become, no matter how long ago our fathers have died, we remain their sons.

When my father was alive I didn’t realize that if I wanted his approval, he also wanted mine.  What father doesn't want to be a hero in his son’s eyes?  And if not a hero (for how many of us are heroes?), at least respected, well thought of.  This is a truth I’ve learned from my experience with my own children.  I want their good opinion at least as much as I wanted it from my father. 

 

My father did not see the original publication of that book nor its translation into Spanish, nor will he see its translation into Chinese.  He did not see me win tenure or become a full professor.  But he saw my marriage and the birth of my two children, who were 10 and 12 when he died and thus gave him a chance to know them. My marriage and my children gave him far more pleasure than could any professional attainment.  I will try to remember that when I regret not being able to tell him about any other accomplishment, should there be any more to report.


2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Bravery

Last week we attended the twenty-third annual “Inter-generational Day” at the elementary school three of our grandchildren attend.  The day’s centerpiece is a school-wide musical production, with the children from each grade, one grade at a time, singing and dancing in choreographed routines.  The musical’s theme this year was the Olympics, with each grade (two classes per grade) representing one or two countries. 

Our elder granddaughter’s third grade represented South Africa, with the girls dressed in yellow and brown head scarves and matching sarongs.  During the middle of their dance performance, one of the girl’s sarongs fell to the floor, revealing her in her white underwear.  Her undergarments were the soul of modesty, with a high neckline, sleeves half way down her arms and pants almost to her knees.  Still, it was clear from the expression on her face that she was mortified.  The nightmare of being naked in a public place – is there anyone here who has not dreamt that dream and is there any place more public than an auditorium with hundreds of spectators? – had come true for her in effect, even if she was in fact still dressed. 

She hung her head in acute embarrassment and then, pulling herself together, continued her dance routine with the rest of her class.  She didn’t run off the stage but soldiered on.  Hers was one of the bravest behaviors I have ever seen.

Bravery comes in many forms.  It’s not found only in the battlefield.  It’s found in performers, like the late Glenn Gould, who suffer from severe stage fright but who nonetheless perform in public.  And it was found in several of the friends we visited last week.

Two of them are recent widows and the third is the husband of a wife dying from end-stage Alzheimer’s disease.  He visits his wife daily, but she does not recognize him.  She’s present and yet she’s not.  For each of these three friends, the world has changed irrevocably.  Icarus has dropped into the sea, a few feathers floating above the little splash his body has made, while merchants and buyers haggle in the marketplace and farmers till their fields, no one paying attention to those feathers and that splash.  Our friends now must go about their affairs as if nothing has changed although everything has changed.

Unlike the courage of the girl in our granddaughter’s class, their bravery is hidden from the world.  They continue their routines, they work on the projects that engaged them before their loss, they entertain their friends, they engage with the world.  But they do so under a burden of grief unimaginable to one, married for almost 50 years, still lucky enough to sleep next to his spouse.  One night, however, our bed will contain only one of us, and that person will learn what’s it’s like to carry on alone.  I only hope the survivor will do so with as much grace as the friends we visited last week and the girl in our granddaughter’s class.


2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Social Change

The other day we visited an old friend, who, at 84, is even older than I am.  He told us that one of his granddaughters, a sophomore at a prestigious university, is no longer with her boyfriend.  Her boyfriend had told her that he was uncertain about his sexual identity and wanted time to sort things out.  Our friend also told us that the same granddaughter, writing a paper on contraception, had asked him “Grandpa, what method of contraception did you and Grandma use?”  He didn’t tell us how he answered her, but he did say that he was taken aback by her question just as he was surprised by her former boyfriend’s openness.  My wife and I agreed, as did our friend, that we could never have asked our grandparents that question. 

We didn’t discuss the change in attitudes towards homosexuality, but the change would have been hard to foresee when we were college students, at a time when most gay men were closeted, when homosexuality was seen as shameful by the general public and by many gay men themselves.  The idea that men could marry each other, had it been floated then, would have seemed bizarre.  Now, when the Times publishes the wedding announcements of gays and lesbians, we take such marriages in our stride.

We agreed with our friend that today’s openness about sexual matters is probably healthy, if unthinkable when we went to college.  I remember the parietal rules of my youth, when you had to return your date to her dormitory before one am on a Saturday night, earlier during the week.  I don’t recall the penalties for violating these rules except that they were severe.  Female colleges acted in loco parentis in preserving their students’ virginity.  (No one seemed to care about the men’s virginity except, of course, the men themselves, who were eager to lose it.) Nowadays, male and female students share the same dormitories, sometimes even the same suites.

True, back in my day, young women could and did lose their virginity before one in the morning, but the parietal rules by and large kept libido in check.  As for me, I was often glad to have a respectable excuse for bringing my date back to her dorm, concluding our time together, which, as often as not, was stilted, uncomfortable, and joyless for us both.  I thought I was grown up when I went to college, but clearly I wasn’t.  I thank whatever gods may be that I no longer have to suffer through those dates.  No doubt my dates, old ladies now, are grateful too.  In any event, the changes in mores implied by the stories our friend told us about his granddaughter were unimaginable when we were young.  It’s hard to believe that our grandchildren will see social changes as great as these, but they probably will.


2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

A Basketball Game

A few days ago I watched my eleven-year-old grandson participate in the playoffs for his junior basketball league.  The game was a thriller, with the final score decided in the last minute, 48-46.  Our grandson played on the winning team, which will now advance to the quarter finals. 

My grandson raced up and down the court, blocked opposing players, passed the ball, and shot it into the basket as if absolutely nothing in the world was more important than what he was doing, as if his life depended on the outcome of the game.  He was not alone.  He and all his teammates played with ferocious intensity. 

As I watched them play, I wondered if anything in their life will ever seem as important to them.  Will they ever be so riveted to their task?  Will they ever be as totally present as they were in the game I watched?

It will probably be impossible for my grandson to maintain the same level of intensity all the time in the situations of everyday life.  Only if he is unfortunate enough to find himself under fire, at war, is he likely to keep that level of adrenalin flowing for so long.  Nonetheless, I hope that he will find an occupation that arouses his passion, so that he wakes up in the middle of the night to think about solutions to the problems it poses, so that he gets up in the morning eager to go to work.  Such a person is blessed.

As I wondered about his future, I thought about my past and about the projects that aroused a high level of commitment, projects that consumed me.  There have been, I’m glad to say, more than a few.  But the last such project ended about 12 years ago.  Since then I worked for several years on another undertaking, a history, but in the end it came to nothing, mainly because I was never in love with it to begin with.  I won’t say that the fires that once burned within me have died out.  It would be more accurate to say that they’re smoldering, banked under a layer of ash.  But I haven’t found a poker to stir them up again.

At 80, it seems to me that I’m entitled to stop searching for that poker and simply to be grateful for those projects that were for me the equivalent of my grandson’s basketball game.  Many people, after all, spend their whole working lives without ever finding their occupation engrossing or, as I found it many times, thrilling.  Tennyson’s adage about having loved and lost applies to work as well as to love.  Nonetheless, I keep looking for that topic that might stir those fires once again. In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye on my grandson – indeed on all my grandchildren – in the hope that each of them finds work that arouses their passion.


2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Friends

In Monday's post, I wrote about Professor David Oliver's video blogs concerning the course of his disease, nasal pharyngeal cancer, and its treatment.  One of his blogs was devoted to the importance of friendships and social support. Recently I had a demonstration of its power, when I went to Friday evening services at our congregation after an unavoidably public fainting bout there the week before.

We had joined the congregation at least five years ago, but it's only in the past year that I've been participating fully, joining its biweekly Mussar group, its weekly Torah Study Group, and the rabbi's weekly lesson, participating in Friday evening services and in the Saturday morning minyan, and providing occasional commentaries for the weekly bible portion.  My initial motivation was, I confess, instrumental.  I wanted a social network.  After leaving behind a tight community in Jerusalem, I felt as if I was now among a lot of loose marbles on a tray, as a student of mine once described the population of Los Angeles, where he saw little connection among people.  If religious congregations offer anything, it's fellowship, and so I started to participate in my own congregation because of my search for friends.

That my search was rewarded was clear at Shabbat services after my pacemaker was installed.  When I entered the prayer hall, at least a score of people greeted me with hugs and kisses and congratulations.  One would have supposed that I had returned from a trip to the moon.  And when our prayer leader asked if anyone would like to mention the name of a person in need of physical or spiritual healing, in connection with the mi sheberach prayer, a half dozen people gave my name.  Although I felt that I didn't deserve so much attention, it was, of course, immensely gratifying.   It gives me confidence that when the symptoms of my metastastic cancer become obvious  - a long time from now I hope - the congregation will rally to my support  In the meantime, I've found participation in its various activities gratifying on its own terms.  Even atheists need spiritual refreshment.


2010-2012  Anchises-An Old Man's Journal  All Rights Reserved

David Oliver

Our daughter, a palliative care social worker who is ever alert to stories that might interest me, told me about  Prof. David Oliver, a gerontologist at the University of Missouri Medical School, who has been diagnosed with stage four nasal pharyngeal cancer.  Like my metastastic prostate cancer, it’s an illness that can be treated but not cured. 

Using his medical condition as a teaching opportunity, he has created, with the help of his wife, Debra Parker Oliver, a palliative care social worker and an assistant professor at the University of Missouri Medical School, a series of video blogs tracing the course of his illness and its treatment.  These include an announcement of his illness, the shaving of his head prior to chemotherapy, the formidable array of medications he must take, his reactions during the twenty-one days following chemotherapy (steroid-fueled elation and a feeling of strength and invulnerability, followed by crashing and misery and finally a gradual return to normality), his wife’s reactions during the same period of time (his first period is the most troublesome to her, whereas when he’s crashed she can relax), and the importance of social supports.

He’s a big, likeable man, with a sense of humor that’s exemplified by his two “puke buckets” that he emblazed with the insignia of the Oklahoma Sooners and the Kansas Jaywalkers, sports rivals of his beloved University of Missouri.  He bought them prior to his chemotherapy treatments.  So far he’s not had to use them except to collect the plentiful grayish blonde hair that was shaved from his head.

As I watched his video blogs in admiration of his good spirits and his ability to convey what his experience has been like so far, I thought how fortunate I’ve been.  First of all, I lived a lot longer than he has before I found myself with metastasis.  Second, so far I’ve escaped chemotherapy.   I’ll have to face it eventually, if my other ailments haven’t knocked me out before that.  Judging by Dr. Oliver’s report, it won’t be much fun, but I’ll worry about that when the time comes.  And again judging from his report, he finds life well worth living even in the course of this dreaded therapy.  So upwards and onwards for us both.


2010-2012  Anchises-An Old Man's Journal  All Rights Reserved

Partners

“Men think differently from women,” my wife said recently, then modified her assertion by adding, “At least you think differently from me.”  We had been discussing an e-mail message that I had sent to our architect about the final accounting from our contractor.  First she had written a draft of the e-mail, then I had reworked her draft, and then she had revised mine before I finally sent it off.  In the process, while tightening her prose, I omitted a sentence that she had thought important, and she had not caught its omission when reviewing my draft.

Whether or not men do think differently from women, it’s clear I think differently from my wife, who is more diffuse in her writing than I am.  I try to use a minimum of words.  If I’m not the strong silent type in speech, I try to be in prose.   But I’m glad we think differently.  I’d hate to be married to someone like me.

Besides, the two of us make a whole, each correcting the biases and blind spots of the other, each supplying the other's lacunae of memory.  It’s not a right-brain, left-brain distinction I’m making here. Both of us have verbal as well as non-verbal skills, but even so, what I lack my wife often provides and vice versa.  Each of us supplies the counterweight for the other’s excesses or lacks, steadying the boat so to speak of our marriage.  We are fortunate in each other.  The day will come, though, when one of us will have to manage without the other’s help and support.  May that day be far away.

2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Grandpa

The other day, during my morning walk in Prospect Park, I noted that everyone, whether  running or walking, was passing me on the East Drive, even though I was keeping as rapid a pace as I could.  That all the runners were passing me was understandable, but all the walkers too?  What’s the matter with me?  But then I reminded myself that I was the only octogenarian out there, which made me feel better.  After all, I’m still vertical, I told myself, and still out there walking every day, which is a lot more than most of my friends of the same age can say.

My comparison with the younger walkers reminds me of the question my grandfather used to ask: “why can’t I compare myself to those poorer than I am rather than to those who are richer.”  This was, of course, a rhetorical question and anyway, what would the teenager walking with him know about it?  But now that I think of it, his question suggests that he measured himself against others in terms of his wealth, that money was his prime desideratum.  True, he often said that a good name is priceless, but I think he valued a good name primarily in the mercantile sense of paying his bills on time and obtaining an excellent credit rating.

The youngest of nine children, he was orphaned at nine years of age, a trauma whose shadow never left him, causing him throughout his life to dream that he was boating with his parents, that his parents fell overboard, and that he was unable to save them.  He couldn’t pull his parents from the water, but he pulled himself out of the direst poverty, establishing an enterprise that employed 3,000 people and becoming a rich man. 

That would not have happened had he not been enormously ambitious, had he not considered the making of money a supreme goal.  He once told me that during the Christmas season, when he was still operating a cobbler’s shop in Lowell or Woburn, he would work 22 hours a day.  “Every dollar is a soldier,” he liked to tell me, “a soldier that will fight for you.”  My mother once told me that Grandpa offered to let his children keep the fee that the dentist would charge for novocain if they did not request the drug.  

He was a hard man and his children regarded him with fear.  But who am I to criticize him?  Thanks to him, I was able to attend top colleges and graduate schools.  Thanks to him, I've had a pleasant and easy life, partly because, again thanks to him, he wouldn't let me join his firm after I had taken the trouble to obtain an MBA.  "If he’s any good,” he told my father, “he doesn’t need me, and if he isn’t any good, I don’t want to hire him.”  This eminently sensible view forced me to look elsewhere for work, enabling me to find an engaging career that I enjoyed. As a businessman, I doubt that I would have enjoyed my work because I'm not likely to have been very good at it.  My grandfather loved me, his oldest grandson, as much as it was possible for him to love anyone, and he knew me better than I knew myself.  

I'm now almost as old as he was when he died at the age of 81.  If I were to meet him now, I would of course, think of myself as a young person in comparison to him and would probably feel too diffident to express my feelings.  So I'll do it here.  Grandpa, thank you.

2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

I'm Sorry

The other day,  I took four bags of fabrics and old shoes to the Fabric Recycling Center at the green market, held each week at the Grand Army Plaza.  As I was crossing the street, one of my bags bumped the bag of a woman who was walking in the opposite direction.  “Hey!” she called out, as if I had assaulted her.  I walked a few paces forward before turning around.   She had walked forward too, but she was looking at me over her shoulder, an aggrieved expression on her face.  “I’m sorry,” I said. She said nothing in reply.  So I turned around and continued my walk.

But why did I apologize?  Both her bag and my bags bumped each other.  I was no more responsible than she was.  Still, I apologized, hoping perhaps to mollify her.  After all, her feelings were hurt and if I could make her feel better, why not do so?  Life is hard enough without our making it more difficult for others.  And if we can lighten another’s load, we should, even if the load is of the other’s making, even if the other’s grievance is unjustified.

This is what I rationalized after the fact, although in truth, nothing like that was in my mind when I said “I’m sorry.”  As I thought about the interaction, I wondered if I’m not overly accommodating, overly deferential. I note, for example, that I tend to move slightly to the side when I’m walking in Prospect Park if I see someone running in my direction, so that the runner can continue running in a straight line.  Why shouldn’t he move to the side instead?  Why shouldn’t I be able to continue walking in a straight line?  I have no answer.

But, hey, at 80 am I going to transform myself into a more aggressive person, a man  who would, in response to that aggrieved woman’s “hey,” say “lighten up, lady” or “what’s the matter with you?”  It’s not going to happen.  Besides, I tell myself, I’ve gotten along pretty well the way I am, without sharp elbows, without, in fact, even normal assertiveness.  Had I been more hard-edged, would I have done as well?  Who knows? 

A famous psychoanalyst once claimed to be able to diagnose patients by watching them walk behind a screen that showed only their legs from the knee down to their feet.  His point was that people’s behavior is consistent, whether they’re walking behind a screen or apologizing for a collision not of their sole making.  I'm not sure what this says about my psyche, but what the hell, at 80 I'll do as I please.  I'll keep moving out of the way of runners and apologizing when it's not my fault.  And I'll stop worrying about it.


2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Pacemaker

Have you ever walked into a store intending to buy a handkerchief, say, and left, having replaced half your wardrobe, adding shirts, socks, belts, and a hat?  That’s the way I felt over the last weekend, after I entered the emergency room at Methodist Hospital in Park Slope.

My wife and I had been sitting in the front row during Shabbat evening services, when, towards the end of the service, I began to feel faint.  Sweating profusely and, I later learned, yawning repeatedly while my legs twitched, I felt wave after wave of faintness.  For years, I’d experienced episodes of fainting or near fainting, so this was nothing new, although it felt more severe.  The rabbi called for a doctor and a young man, a pediatrician, came and sat next to me.  I asked him if he also treats people in second childhood, but alas he does not.

Another member of the congregation offered to drive my wife and me to the emergency room of Methodist Hospital, a few blocks away; our young, charismatic rabbi helped me into the car, the doctor got in too, and when, in the emergency room, my heart rate was measured at 37 (normal is 72) I was admitted to the hospital.

Even I could see that I needed a pacemaker, which would speed up my heart rate.  It was, so to speak, the handkerchief I had come in to buy.  But during my four-night hospital stay, representatives of at least four medical departments, in addition to cardiology, came to examine me.  Vascular surgery: Was the stent that had been inserted in my subclavian artery to repair an aneurysm fifteen years ago deteriorating? (No) Was the blockage in that artery resulting in “subclavian steal,” in which blood is taken from the arteries that supply the brain? (No, but it would be nice to have an excuse.)  Urology: Was my bladder emptying completely when I voided? (Yes) Nephrology: What could be done about my third degree kidney disease?  (Nothing, but this was the first time I learned that the disease was that advanced.  There are only four stages.)   Hematology: What should be done about my anemia? (Nothing at this point) 

I may have missed another one or two specialists, but in the end nothing was done to me beyond implanting a pacemaker and adjusting my medications to bring down my extraordinarily high blood pressure (236/95), which had shot up from my normal 120 – 140/ 70 - 80.  I was probably nervous although I felt very calm.

I have nothing but praise for the medical and supporting staffs at Methodist Hospital.  What discomforted me was the reminder of how many things are wrong with me. When a medical student dissects my corpse, he or she will find evidence of ailments that would fill half a medical encyclopedia.  Before that happens, though, I’ll do my best to emulate the bee, who doesn’t know that his wings are too short for flight.  If I dwell on all that’s wrong with me, I might stop in my tracks.  In the meantime, my pacemaker will have to be replaced in seven or eight years.  My aim is to see that day.


2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

A Ceremony of Losses

If Donald Hall’s awards for his books of poetry, children’s books, and nonfiction were arrayed like medals on his chest, he would have as many decorations as the most beribboned five-star general.  A former poet laureate and a National Medal of Arts winner, now 83 years old, he has written a meditation on old age for the January 23^rd New Yorker Magazine.

I teeter when I walk, I no longer drive…Each season, my balance gets worse, and sometimes I fall…I feel the circles grow smaller, and old age is a ceremony of losses, which is on the whole preferable to dying at forty-seven  [as did his wife, the poet Jane Kenyon] or fifty-two  [as did his father]…However alert we are, however much we think we know what will happen, antiquity remains an unknown, unanticipated galaxy.  It is alien, and old people are a separate form of life.  They have green skin, with two heads that sprout antennae, he writes, as far as the young are concerned.

Whatever the reaction of younger people to old age, it is, he writes, unfailingly condescending, an assertion he supports with several examples, the most egregious of which entails a museum guard who recently asked Hall, after he had emerged from the cafeteria, “did we have a nice din-din?” 

Although Hall’s description of us old timers as possessing green skin, two heads, and antennae is, of course, an exaggeration for effect, in essence it’s true, but only if people notice us at all.  In a gathering of the young, I often feel invisible, irrelevant.  But when I am noticed, I feel that the onlookers see me as other.  When fumbling for change at a checkout counter, for example, I sense that those standing behind me are regarding me as clumsiness incarnate, an old man holding up the line.  When I was young, I viewed slowly paying old people in just that way.  

At my wife’s 50^th college reunion, the late Reverend Professor Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University, told us that the undergraduates looked upon my wife’s classmates with amazement that they were still ambulatory.  Later that day, when I joined my class in the procession of alumni who graduated at least 50 years before, we walked through a double line of graduating seniors, who applauded us as we walked.  At the time I didn’t think of their applause as condescending, but now that Hall has pointed out the ubiquity of condescension towards the old, I suspect it was.  The only facts the graduating seniors knew of us, after all, were that we were old and that we could still walk.  I was grateful for having survived but this did not merit applause, since I had little to do with it.  My survival has been a matter of genes, excellent doctors, and good luck, cause for celebration on my part but scarcely cause for applause by the young.   

Hall looks at aging with an unblinking eye, savoring the pleasures that remain and realizing the futility of lamenting his losses.  In this I hope to emulate him.


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