Opinion: Age brought to light

Enea Ostrich

Recently I have had friends with requests to pray for their loved ones health in my Facebook, so it prompts me to write today about my thoughts on aging.
It’s been a very long time since we heard of the death of Bob Eagle, our fair city’s man of Public Works, so I dedicate this article to his spirit, for he taught me and many, many people to love life and the nature we see all around us.
I think of people walking on the pier and laughing and then those that we don’t see, or do not choose to see.
Do we see the frail woman on the bench, the one holding the cane?  She is shaking uncontrollably as she slowly gets up from it.
She is not asking for help from anyone, just enjoying the view at the pier as we all do.
This is what people who are healthy and young do too, except they have more energy and ability, that’s all.
We must not have sorrow for the old but embrace the thought of aging instead.
To be afraid is to give up—and this frail woman has clearly not given up and neither should we, who are younger.
I spoke with an elderly man recently at a hairdresser in Los Alamitos.  As I admired his wife’s fluffy and glamorous white hair, I looked at her as he did.
He told me they have loved each other since youth.  She was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, and God bless him he has so far.
She recently had some health issues he was concerned with since she had a bad fall at home that prompted her to be in a wheelchair because of a broken hip.
He was taking care of her as we all do when someone gets hurt, but I saw something I do not see in all who I talk to when they talk about injury.
I saw that his love and devotion to her was something you just casually see every day.  His love for her was like the petals on a flower when it blooms—so poetic and beautiful it almost made me cry.  Later on, before he left, I smiled at him and said how nice it was to meet him.
What I should’ve told him was that it made me happy inside to see him and her together.
It made me happy because I was always so afraid of aging, but I realized that it’s all the same except for the years that fast forward.
It’s all the same because of attitude.
The old saying, “You are only as old as you feel” does apply here.
It is my father that tells me today to see and enjoy life the way it’s meant to be—to not constantly worry about things we have no control over.
He tells me to stay active and to not let my health go to pot.
That is what the wisdom of a 79-year-old tells me.
God bless him, his birthday is on March 27 and all I can think of is that we should all be so happy and wise.

Enea Ostrich is a resident of College Park East.