"Do not go gentle into that good night," Welsh poet Dylan Thomas famously wrote, adding "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." The words are beautiful, but as I face another birthday, I think it is probably better to go gently into the inevitable night.
In two poems I wrote after the loss of my mother and both siblings I contemplated the inevitability of death. I revisited those poems recently which I do as each year passes. Here, abbreviated, is what I wrote, in edited prose.
One poem is called” Death Lessons,” in which I wrote “it is never the right time, and wanting more time is okay. It’s knowing that guilt and grief are poor bedfellows, and that only the important moments matter. It’s remembering that there is something special about family and friends and that no one can know that without being one. Also, it’s always too soon.”
In the poem “Going Gently into The Night” I wrote this: “In the deep caverns of my soul where existential thought resides, I think it is the ultimate void, an unending space, non-being, eternally quiet, kindly dark, not frightening, not anything. Still, being an inveterate traveler, if not always an optimist. Maybe something amazing waits on the other side, marvelous, if fleeting, and unimaginable in the trivia of life. Not frightening, but something. Then contemplating mortality, the light enters.”
I thought of these poems again because the older one gets the faster time seems to pass, and we find ourselves contemplating our own demise as people we know, or love, are no longer with us.
I’m not the only one who thinks about this. Poets and writers have written pieces like this rumination. New York Times columnist Charles Blow wrote this a few years ago: “No matter how young I may look or feel time refuses to rest. It forges on. I’m not sure when the world will consider me old, but I know that I’m no longer afraid of it …. I have no intention of raging against my age. I embrace it as a pillar of wisdom and grace and I understand that age is not my body forsaking me, it is my life rewarding me.”
Good memories that drift back like colorful autumn leaves falling gracefully are precious. Stillness becomes quietly pleasant. When we can escape toxic people and events we become liberated. We speak our truth without apology. We no longer ask permission to be ourselves.
But there are things we know that we can’t control, including memory lapses, word retrieval frustrations, misplaced keys, glasses, and cell phones that remind us that this is a shared one-way journey. Sometimes we laugh about it. Other times we wish we had more control over our physical changes.
No one helped us confront aging with humor better than Erma Bombeck. Here’s one of her gems. “Maybe age is kinder to us than we think. With my bad eyes, I can't see how bad I look, and with my rotten memory, I have a good excuse for getting out of a lot of stuff.” Or as Groucho Marx put it, “Getting older is no problem. You just must live long enough.”
With age, we are relieved to find we need less and want less. Good friendships are more valued than new things that clutter our closets and our conscience. Warm places, literally and figuratively, become a treat, like a letter from an old friend makes us happy. Cherishing the present brings with it gratitude and kindness to enhance our daily lives as we contemplate what really matters. Sharing some of those epiphanies with others is a gift derived from our experiences and adventures. We enjoy sharing our stories as much as our audiences like hearing them.
This year I will again celebrate my new and somewhat stunning age with a friend I have fun with. It’s become a tradition. We will likely splurge on a special meal and a massage, see a show in New York City, people watch in Centra Park. What I know for sure is that we will talk late into the night, about politics, people, purposeful living, and the events that have shaped who we are now.
We might watch episodes of the “We Do Not Care Club” on TV which has women our age falling off their chairs laughing, but we will not wonder or worry about what might lie ahead, because we will be thankful for the people we love and cherish, grateful for the experiences, and the challenges we’ve faced and overcome. They have shaped the lives we’ve been living and helped make us who are and they will continue to be, as long as the clock ticks us toward our mutual destiny. If we’re lucky it might be another amazing journey, embarked upon without rage or resistance, but peacefully and with gratitude.
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Elayne Clifts writes and ages in Brattleboro, Vt.