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In defence of ageing

My grandparents are leaving the house. I watch them depart through the back door, sigh, and lean against the kitchen surface. The heating has been too high all day (even in a shirt, woolly jumper and jacket, my Grandpa remains cold). As I sigh, an intake of breath echoes mine just outside the door. It’s my brother’s girlfriend. I hear the words “there’s blood” and then suddenly all is consumed in a flurry. Eight pairs of hands blur. Instructions merge and deflect in this sudden vortex of hot flannels, cotton buds, torches, ice, and a white face.

Frozen, no emotion passes through my Grandmother’s swollen face for 25 minutes. Her lips are parted unnaturally, blood falling from her nose and mouth in silent steadiness. My Grandpa punctuates the chaos, “Well it’s confirmed. We’re old and decrepit. When we’re gone you’ll say the silly fools we are.”

I stretch my arms gently around his neck and verbally dismiss his fears, but the certainty is set. Set in the shake of his head and the stone of my Grandma’s face.  

Later, someone remarks that we forget what it is to be old. I certainly remain distracted by the condemnation my own generation faces. We are distorted. We dress incorrectly. We think we are immortal. We destroy our bodies. “Oh how reckless the youth are,” the TV screams. We’re told we have been anaesthetised. Our hearts chucked out, programmed to condemn poetry and seek debauchery.

But the stereotype of ‘the old’ is also opposed with its own intensity. Pre-emptive empathy stalks them. When my Grandpa stops in the street because he is out of breath, he huffs what breath he has at those who pause and check that he is alright. “I have every right to stop, I am absolutely fine,” he rants in his mind, as he self-righteously puffs out his (remaining) energy into asserting his healthy-absolutely-fine-and-not-needing-to-be-patronised chest.

This forced indignation arises too, most memorably, when an elderly couple check in at my job. The gentleman takes the appropriate form and I watch his hands shakily but stubbornly write his name. Each letter zig zags as it follows its curvature, as if a child were practising ‘fun’ handwriting. He gets to the trigger-point on the form at which I am meant to ask him for his card details.

Everything suddenly becomes very tense. He raises his voice in frustration, refusing to do such a thing. Myself, conscious of a boss who isn’t particularly fond of me, and who would certainly not be pleased if I failed to get the details, turn to persuasion. His voice rises, spittle collecting as his face begins to turn red. It transpires that an American company had asked for his details and subsequently stolen hundreds of pounds from him. “That sounds awful,” I sympathetically reply, “but we are merely a country pub. Honestly, we are not going to steal your money. It’s purely a …” I am interrupted. “Well. That’s what you claim! How do I know who you are or what you’ll do!”

Customers turn their heads, the chef peeks round the through-door. My lips quiver. Finally I manage to interrupt. I tell him that I will leave it for the moment. I quickly escort him to his room, help his wife up the stairs, and scarper. As I return, the chef beckons to me. I enter the kitchen and as he asks me whether I am alright, my tear ducts surprise me. I have had many obnoxious customers, many angry customers, many customers who believe that a fat wallet discounts the need for manners. But through all the experiences that hospitality happily provides, never have I cried. The combination of being both young and behind a counter provoked in him a real fear and suspicion of the world.

When did checking into an inn become such a torment? When does a fall become so serious?

When we are in a rush somewhere my friend will sometimes cry for us to slow down, unable to speed up her nervous feet. We laugh at this, and so does she. How foolish to be scared of the pavement and your own feet! But at an unknowable point our feet will pitter patter with that once mocked caution. We too will grey. 

It does not help that to articulate we must use ‘we’ and ‘they’. But we continue, as a generalisation, to treat the oldest generations as if they have somehow regressed back to infancy.

To borrow the words of the memorable Morrie Schwartz, “If you stayed at twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Ageing is not just decay, you know. It’s growth.”

Our aesthetics increasingly emphasise our age, and there is no denying that for some ageing involves mental deterioration. But there is a cliché that must be spoken more. Ageing isn’t just decaying, it brings wisdom too. 

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