When we are in our teens or thirties or even fifties, and we encounter death , we respond differently than when we are sixty, or seventy; eighty or ninety . Developmentally, our response unfolds within us in a different manner. We experience a domino dynamic of intellectual, and then internal responses. More interesting still, we become surprised when, in our sixties, we begin noticing ourselves more profoundly impacted by the deaths of those we know, or only know of.
Unless we live in a high crime area or a war torn country, when younger, we interpret death as an unlikely anomaly. If we know someone or love someone who dies from an illness or accident when younger, it is an unanticipated untenable shock we do not recover from easily. It is counter-intuitive and nothing we ever thought could happen. It tends to destroy our concept of life as we knew it, and we struggle to reconfigure a way of life that continues to make sense.
In our sixties and older, we intellectually realize we are growing closer to a time when those of our species grow ill or older and their life comes to an end. It's still a concept, but we are just beginning to gather its accuracy, and it's import to us, in our own lives.
When we begin to notice our own vulnerabilities and health challenges grow, our distrust of how these things would ever apply to us is slowly shattered, and just as slowly, we begin to grow developmentally , with a deeper realization of our own mortality, as we begin to rearrange priorities and plans and options.
As we gradually grieve probable losses and reconfigure our self concept , based on how it seems our time here has, so far, turned out. And what may or may not end up happening. And how to dry up into angry bitterness, or deepen our awareness and acceptance, and turn to relish what it is we have here, in our hands.
Simone de Beauvoir took note of this at age 60, and decided to realize which of her plans for the future would probably not work out, and what she might want to prioritize.
Interesting enough, she decided that a many-week-long solitary bicycle ride was at the top of her list. She got in shape, made her plans, and set out. Had a great time. Never regretted it. In my twenties while reading this, it stuck with me, this admirable pragmatism and foresight.
I was curious as to why I was recently so touched by Carrie Fisher's death. I'd been so impacted by her open struggles with addiction, with biochemical imbalances. By her artistry, and her decision to share with the world the reality of these struggles, expunge shame and blame related to them, and do what she could to normalize them. What a choice. And to publicly , with authenticity, answer gossipy questions with respectful candor . And share widely what she had learned.
I loved some of her writing and, frankly, didn't think a lot about how I felt a little bit more okay with her spirited sharp wise self in the world. I didn't know I'd feel a loss, and a sadness, at the quickness of her death. My breath caught when I heard. I became so touched by her spoken words about death and dying.
So why such an impact? Well, I realized I'm 64. More people I know have discovered serious conditions . My own realizations regarding the reality of aging and illness and death are making some pretty profound changes far within, each season, each evening, each day.
My sense is that this is how life works. My sense is that it is only human limitations that keep us from comprehending the complexity with which ants and trees and bears process their growing realizations of their own aging or illness, or the reality of eventual death.
I've known innumerable people older than myself who experience that tough stuff, of the deaths of the people in their lives who have known and loved them well, known them since then, understand how they feel and think and why.
When they live long enough to have no one who either knew them then, or knows how that feels, it becomes a difficult road.
Think of all the older people you knew, when you were younger, who had inconceivably younger photos of their younger selves , set on a bedside table or dining room wall. They would look at their younger selves for recognition. For this very internal process.
For that developmental digesting of this strange reality . Of growth and lifetime and aging and change, and the seeming lost and found of transformation.
And you would stand there, not registering why this wrinkled hard-of-seeing and hearing and walking person would ever have this strange version of themselves right there. You didn't even get it . Nor did I. I remember those moments .
So now, it begins. For those of us who are in our sixties or seventies or eighties or nineties.
We are learning these things. And if we pay attention and keep our eyes and awareness open,
it might get pretty tough, but we'll learn.
We'll do okay. It's all just in the moments. We just want to stay awake.
