OLD AGE BRAGGING [W, 2-12-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Regrets of An Old Man—OLD AGE BRAGGING [W, 2-12-25]

 

Well, I did it. Something I had pledged never to do. There are many things I have pledged never to do, having done them before to great embarrassment and chagrin, but this particular broken pledge is about old-age oneupmanship.

I was sitting on a bench outside the walk-in clinic--where I had to go for x-rays because the machine in my doctor’s office was broken—waiting for Helen to bring the car around, to spare my painful hip the walk to the parking lot.

As old man walked by me. Well, almost. He got by me but then circled back. He needed to talk to someone who would understand. “We’re old, aren’t we?” he said.

Well, he was wrong, of course. People sometimes think that I’m old because of my gray beard or my absence of hair. Gray beards are simply distinguished, but I made the mistake of telling Helen’s hair cutter, as she was “trimming” mine, that Helen thought I looked more intelligent with short hair, so Kate decided to make me look like a genius. No, I’m sure he thought we were kindredly elderly not because I look old but because I had a cane.

Anyway, I wanted to be kind to him, since he was old, so I acknowledged the truth of his declaration. Mistake. “I’m 86,” he proclaimed proudly.

Old age bragging rights! I noticed them first when I started calling in the homes of old people when I was a young pastor. Those denizens of past years delighted in telling me how old they were and how many surgeries they’d had and how many spouses they had outlived. I didn’t really think that any of that was worth bragging about. They weren’t really achievements.

It was even worse when old people were together, standing around after church, or sitting together at a potluck. Constant oneupmanship. I’m older than you! I’m sicker than you! I’ve had more operations than you! I’m more decrepit than you!

I vowed I would never be like that

But when that guy said he was 86, and he was so proud of it, well, I said, “You’re just a kid. I’m 88!”

Immediately I knew what I had done. He needed to be proud that he had endured, but I was so eager to win the old age competition that I just threw cold water on his “achievement” by comparing it to mine.

I scrambled to make it up, and was successful, I think, because he got to brag that he is so old that he has a child who is 65, and my oldest one is only 63. I was gracious in acknowledging that he won that one. That made us even, almost, I hope.

I think now that when I get old, I’ll better understand what motivates this competition. I was wrong when I was young to think that many years and many operations and many pains were not achievements. Endurance is an achievement, something to be proud of.

Also, though, something that doesn’t need to be compared to the endurance of others to be worthwhile.

 I’m so much older than everybody else that I am wise like that!

John Robert McFarland