The illusion of the term is hardly big enough to cover up the reality. The years are not golden but dimming, confusing, difficult and lonely. My father’s doctor gave him a clean bill of health. “You have a good, strong pulse. As for the other complaints, I’ll do what I can to fix them, but most things are not fixable.”
The decline is sudden, noticeable, followed by a period of  improvement, which brings hope, soon to be shattered. Unlike birth, which makes a clean break from the womb, the return is often filled with lingering and sadness.
“What to do?” Father asked me. He is forever purposeful.
I have some sense of what you’re going through. Went through it with my mom. Watch others go through this with their loved ones. Don’t know if this is appropriate, but it is appropos:
One of those Old Zen Tales
A very prudent and wealthy old man,
After long years of toiling at avarice,
Sought to endow his local monastery
With some portion of what he amassed.
He called the abbot to him and said he
Would do this, but required something
In return, that he wanted something for
The effort of relinquishing what he gained
By great pain: he wanted wisdom, an answer
To a tumultuous life’s unasked questions.
The abbot stood, chin in hand, and said,
“Mmmm…I will ponder this request.”
And he returned to his wealthy monastery.
After weeks in deepest contemplation he
Returned to the estate of the wealthy old man.
“What do you have for me? Something
Worthy of my gift to you I hope,” he was asked.
The monk sat down, folded hands in his lap,
Took a deep and cleansing breath, and
Looking the old thief in the eye said,
“Grandfather dies. Father dies. Son dies.”
The rich old man gasped. He was outraged.
“What! I give wealth and ease, raise your order
Higher than any other order in the kingdom,
And this, this cheerless vision, death, death
And death, is all you have to compensate me?
What kind of answer is this?” The old abbot
Stared at the man, puzzled, “What is wrong?
Would you have the order some other way?”
SPMackin, October 2011
As you are complexly selfed,
so you are complexly old
various ages manifesting
none wholly dead until all die
And the hope for wisdom
useless
And the hope for understanding
a laugh
And the hope to be free of neurosis
hilarious.
Listen to the stomach:
Vahrahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…