What It's All About

Until you are almost at the end of your life, you won't know "what it's all about". I don't mean that you will walk around being a smart apple telling other people that only you know its meaning. It is that, about your life, you will finally know "what it's all about". Especially, if you are the mate who is left alone after a union of some sort that lasted a long time, you are finally able to fully understand, and put together all the loose pieces like solving a jigsaw puzzle. You have hours and hours of time to ponder over what you are to be leaving behind. You have no idea when, but you know it isn't long off and that it will always be a surprise and something that, for once, you can't control. You re-live so many experiences which at the time of happening, seemed not to matter. Now you are able to examine them in detail and find out that, yes, they did matter a whole lot, not only to you, but to others as well. This time of reflection can be dangerous for you have to remain positive, otherwise guilt could creep in, and it can be ugly. When guilt sneers, you chase it away with recollecting the good times and things you did that create the counterbalance. Balance is what a good life is truly all about. There is good and bad, and you have seen and been both. Images flood in. The loves you had are back at those first moments as you  encountered each with all innocence and idealism and an open mind. You have, again, those sweet memories because now there is time and peace and stillness to enable them.  All the colours and sensations, sounds and feelings come back and make you smile and yes, shed tears. You have  knowledge that every single event, large and small in your life, is slowly leaving: your physical and mental abilities are tapering down but nothing, nothing takes away those dearest, closest memories. They are what is golden and truly makes The Golden Age. Your family comes back vividly, and all of the delightful moments you had together when time was no issue and life was a daily joy. Your childhood games and small friends are there, and you are running and jumping and playing in the parks and woods and camps. You are swimming recklessly across water waves and racing along streets on your bike and crashing fearlessly through leafy bushes and running through wide farm fields. You're riding  horses bareback and climbing  trees and hiking mossy mountain trails. Your furry pets, the dogs you loved and romped with, and how they smelled and felt and those eyes that loved you back. The cats that made you laugh when you played string with them or the tiny blue parakeet that clung to your finger and learned to "talk". Then there are the candled birthday cakes your mother baked and how the ice-cream parties always had a crisis but they ended with everyone saying good-bye and sighing in happiness for such a wonderful beginning to another growing-up year. Your wedding, all of your houses and the babies, how they felt as you held them, how they looked at you in wonder as you fed them, how they trusted you and how, oh dear, sometimes you let them down a little, and now, how that hurts. But putting it all together, it's  your life and this is the beautiful time of it, being old and reliving what soon, you will be leaving. It's a sad song but a deep, sweet one.