Those were the times! We could eat like a horse and not look like one. All of the school teachers were older than we were, and professional athletes were about the age of our older brothers. Life was an open highway.
Then came the subtle hints of mortality. The neighborhood kids started calling you “Mister” or “Ma’am.” Your parents start acting like your children. You find yourself squinting when you watch TV or reading road signs.
And then there’s the tell-tale mirror. When you were young, you made faces in the mirror. Now that you’re older, the mirror’s getting even. What was tight now sags. What once swung now bounces. Everything hurts when you wake up. What doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work. You bend down to straighten the wrinkles in your socks and realize you aren’t wearing any.
Someone compared it to being like an automobile. As it gets older, the differential starts slipping, and the u-joints get worn, causing the drive shaft to go bad. The transmission won't go into high gear and sometimes has difficulty getting out of low. The carburetor gets fouled with pollutants and other matter, making it hard to get started in the morning. It’s hard to keep the radiator filled because of the leaking hose. The thermostat goes out, making it difficult to reach operating temperature. The headlights grow dim, the horn gets weaker and the battery needs constant recharging.
This week, I woke up a year older. I’ve heard people my age should start thinking about the hereafter. I already do. There are many times I go somewhere and ask myself, “What am I here after?” All my life I was taught to respect my elders, now I am one!
So, what are we elders to do? Just because we are over the top of the hill doesn’t mean we’ve passed our peak. Our final chapters can be some of our most significant. Our final works can be some of our best.
The wisest are not the ones with the most years in their lives, but the most life in their years. We need to dare to reclaim the enthusiasm for life we had in our childhood. A positive mind set can make our day. It’s better to set our mind so that when we wake up we can say, “Good morning, Lord.” and not “Good Lord, it’s morning.”
Until the time God calls us home and our journey ends, it would do us well to follow the parting encouragement of Michelangelo found in a handwritten note to his apprentice after his death: “Draw Antonio, draw, and do not waste time.”
Good advice for us all. Time slips, days pass, years fade, life ends. What we came to do must be done while there is time.
We were made to live forever. Now, however, we live but for a moment. Let us seize those moments. Let us live for the moments we have, giving praise to our God for those special people and moments in this journey we call life.