As BBM ages, he often mentions how no one has warned him or properly prepared him for old age. He seems to have an especially strong grudge against his father who never passed on what he must have been going through at this same age. No, not a grudge. Perhaps a resentment. No, that is probably too strong as well, since often we end up in gales of laughter together at younger people’s ignorance at what is in store for them. Perhaps the word is closer to miffed. BBM is miffed that his father was not more transparent with what was certain to come to an aging man who was previously perceived as pseudo-superman. He was physical, he was intelligent, he was motivated, he was, well lots of things. And, to be frank, he is still physical, intelligent, motivated, superman even, in his heart. And, truth-be-told, in my heart.

And, as we age, the heart becomes more and more important. We remember incidents from childhood. All those emotions are in our memory. Through simple phone calls, we feel closer to people we haven’t seen in years. The reminiscing with friends and loved ones becomes truncated as one memory leads to another and soon the words cannot come fast enough. One phrase leads to a burst of laughter as each remembers their own version of what occurred at the time. Another phrase prompts a minor correction in facts and who did what.

The heart becomes more important in another way too. That is, the physical, beating thing which drives all the other functions we begin to notice are important in this personal house in which we reside. Is it beating strong enough? Is it beating often enough? Is it trying to race ahead of us and go its own way? And, more importantly, why?

Then again, BBM’s heart appears to be the least of his worries. His new right knee chides his left that it too should be getting a new core. This past winter BBM couldn’t understand why the right knee was aching quite so much. Then, he realized that the aches coincided with the cold weather. So, why was his knee cold? Why didn’t the flesh around the new metal warm it so that it wouldn’t ache? These are more immediate questions which take time to consider. And, consider we did. Huddled around the fireplace, covered with blankets, and noting that if it were warmer, if it weren’t blowing quite so much, if the aches and pains weren’t there, we would definitely go for a bicycle ride today!

This aging process takes courage to face successfully. Events which used to go unnoticed, or were deemed not important enough to take the time to consider and reflect upon, become otherwise. They have become events which cannot be ignored. They become events which we need to discuss and come to a conclusion as to what should or could be done about the matter. Events such as someone parking inefficiently across two parking spots. As BBM waited outside the shop, he honked the horn at the young man who studiously kept his head turned away. That will tell him we don’t approve of his parking abilities!

Another event occurred when I came, perhaps a bit abruptly, to a stop at a round-about in front of the boat club. I saw a car at the last moment approaching quickly, and made the decision to stop instead of speeding up to beat the other car into the round-about. (For those family in the States, the car entering the round-about first has the right of way, but you must also give way to those entering from your right.) So, I noticed the other car was increasing speed to enter the round-about before us. And, as we were not in a particular hurry to get home for lunch, I made the decision to stop abruptly rather than challenge the hurdling car which was obviously going to charge through.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw BBM jerk to a stop beside me. I hadn’t had time to warn him. So, sitting there, letting this I’m-in-a-hurry business woman go around the round-about before us, I note that she was chagrined to the point of glaring at us to let us know that it was her right to go around before us. Well, you go for it, you young whipper-snapper, I think. You are the one who must get to your next business meeting, whereas I have earned the right to toddle through my days unhurried. Suddenly, we see her car jerk and tip almost to the point of flipping onto the center garden of the round-about. There was a metallic ping at the same time. What? Then we laughed. She was so intent upon glaring at us that she must have cut her turn too sharp for the curve of the round-about. Well, that should teach her to keep her eyes on the road rather than trying to correct people with glares and stares! We muse about what the metallic sound had been. The tire rims hitting the curbing? We’d never before heard that kind of sound when a car hit curbing.

We came around the turn ourselves and see that the woman has pulled over immediately after the round-about. What was that about then? She was in a hurry to stop around the corner? We both burst out laughing again as we drive by and note that the woman’s late model expensive car now has a flat-as-a-pancake front tire. That explained the metallic sound. She had run over one of the water grates on the council’s to-do list. Since we had the time, we drove back to confirm. Yes, there it was, a grate which had gone wonky and had a sharp metal edge sticking up. Not a problem if you stay on the road part of the round-about, but a big issue if you take your eyes off the road to discipline someone who almost broke the road rules from your perspective.

Aging has changed our views in many ways. The recent election has demonstrated how perhaps the aging population still has sway politically through its vote. We’re sure the younger generation can hardly wait for us to get out of their lives. We who have saved and scraped to achieve something on their behalf are suddenly being told how wrong we have been through years of productivity. They forget that it was our generation who did the research to show a better way to be productive while protecting the planet. They forget it was their elders who instilled sustainability in their hearts. They are only interested in cherry-picking history for what fits their current causes.

When we see some of the index ratings for child poverty, we must ask what is child poverty? In the statistics, we see measures for number of shoes, easy internet access, vehicles in the drive, bedrooms for each child. BBM had no shoes. He had gumboots for milking the cows. We had no TV and no internet access. The vehicles were old and shared most times. Bedrooms were crowded with four children per room, sometimes up to three per bed when visitors came. Were we in poverty? Perhaps. But we had parents who protected and nurtured us. They taught us to work hard for what we had. We received one small gift for birthdays and Christmas, and shared with multiple siblings. We worked hard in the home and later outside the home. And, as we age we note that the hard work through our younger years must have given us the resilience to make it through difficult economic times which the next generation are experiencing for the first time. Give us some credit. Of course we were taught to recycle, because we had little to begin with. Of course, we have passed that on to the next generation, even though they have much more and they must make a deliberate decision as to whether they will recycle or not. Ours was by necessity, theirs by choice. So, good on them for continuing the values which we embraced and passed on to them. Just don’t blame us for decisions being made and consequences received in the modern environment.