Welcome . . . decrepitude?

I recently completed 75 years of being alive. Not such a big achievement by itself: all it took was being born and making the best of the odds that came my way. An online calculation of my life expectancy (born where and when, plus such factors as smoking, drinking, exercise, stress, relationship status) gives me a 50% chance of dying at age 82.6 — approximately 91.2 months, 2736 days, 43,776 day-time hours from now.

Who knows what lies ahead?

According to the Buddha [1], “. . . there is old age when there is decrepitude, broken teeth, gray hair, wrinkled skin, the dwindling of the life force, and the decaying of the sense faculties. This is called old age.”

What’s to be done in light of acheing joints and vanishing libido?

“Tell me what else I should have done. / Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?”, asks Mary Oliver [1], “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” (emphasis added). Here she reads the poem in full:

According to the Canadian Vanier Institute of the Family [3] —

“The public (and often private) avoidance and denial of and silence around death – and our fear of death resulting from the lack of experiences with dying – have allowed a range of myths and misconceptions to flourish. …

“While we might all hope to live forever, the fact remains that we will all die. No matter how active, healthy and vibrant we may be, death will still come. Only if we face the realities – as opposed to our desires and assumptions – can we prepare for the demographic challenges that lie ahead. Only then can we prepare for our own deaths and those of the people we love.”

To assist you and me in facing said realities, I’ll be using the next few posts to explore ways of preparing for our own demise. Please join the conversation at any time — your comments, questions, and concerns are welcome. May we learn from each other.

“We’re all just walking each other home.”
~ Ram Dass

image: Pablo Picasso, “Self-portrait” (1932).
[1] Holder, John J. (2006). Early Buddhist Discourses. Hackett, pp. 51.
[2] Oliver, Mary. (1992). “The Summer Day.” New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1, Beacon Press.
[3] Arnup, Katherine. (2018). Family Perspectives: Death and Dying in Canada. Full text online.