THAT One

We're all going to "go" with some kind of what we might call an "affliction" but  I shall call it, The End. Our lives end in lots of ways and some feel that Alzheimer's Disease or dementia is the worst. And in a way it is one of the worst The Ends, but not necessarily The Worst. It is gentle and slow. It isn't painful physically. Too many of my friends and family and acquaintances and work mates have gone now. They saw The End. When you are entering your nineties you feel privileged. You have reached a grand old age. You come to almost welcome The End but not in a fun way. Most of your days you feel dandy other than the usual complaints that you try to ignore or laugh away or ouch away. They're there, but you know that life is coming to an end, so why go on and on about it while life is still with you. It's a joy to live. You see everything differently. What you thought was once important and vital even, isn't. Money, power, stuff, status: have little meaning. People you love and who love you are prime in your life. You are so grateful to have had them in your particular life. They don't get that feeling as you do,  but one day, they will, so you tell them and mean it, that you love them. Love them in a way that is hard to explain. They ARE your life. They haven't had to do things to be that way, or to have been good to you or to have achieved in any way you might have hoped, a want that I think is unfair. They simply have BEEN, and that's all they needed to do. In time, some of the elders I respected suddenly can't remember things they ought to. They are very well educated and brilliant people who are slowly slipping into a place called Alzheimers Disease. They look the same. They don't feel the same. All the people in their lives are new and strangers and that's a pretty hard situation that no one understands no matter that they say they do. Most of us unafflicted, find that words we once knew, suddenly escape their meanings. Events that we are told happened, seem foggy.  I don't have Alzheimer's Disease but my memory still plays little tricks. Those with the actual disease, are highly affected. And you know what? I don't care. It's not remembering that matters. As they do, I love food, people around me that are caring. I love the mind that I have just as it is. I love the sun rise and sun sets, I love any weather, I love all animals and all people, even those I have yet to meet. Being old is a perfect joy and life is perfect just the way it is.  Even at eighty eight.