You asked for sad, so this is going to be very, very depressing. Some sad truths about aging are:
- People you used to know and love die. This includes friends and family.
- Body parts wear out. No body part is exempt. However, in one person’s body, only some parts wear out. Once they all wear out, we die.
- Things change. The world we were born into disappears and a new one takes its place. Trees die or are cut down to make room for something else, buildings are pulled down and new ones built that look very different. Or perhaps a big new street is built there or a fancy park. Establishments from farms and stores to companies and governments change hands.
In my lifetime, systems have changed.
- Schools changed from rural schools scattered throughout the countryside to consolidated schools in a central urban location.
- Measurements changed from Imperial to Metric, then got halted halfway through when the government changed, leaving Canadians with a thorough mix that, fifty years later, everyone understands very well. We post speed signs in kilometre per hour (km/h) and measure distance in miles; we buy sugar and flour in kgs (kilograms) and weigh our dogs in pounds; we forecast temperatures in Celsius and measure ourselves in feet and inches.
- Language policy changed. French and English now appear on everything we buy.
- New Jurisdictions are created. Nunavut (April 1, 1999) and Palestine (September 2025), previously parts of adjacent lands, were created/acknowledged. I am sure there are many others but I don’t know about them.
Lives Change
You did not indicate what point of aging you are interested in. The aging process starts the moment we enter the world. Many of our lives change in ways we never expected or planned for. Some of us die far from where we were born, either in physical location or in religious/political ideology. For example, I know a lot of people now living in Ontario, Canada, who were born on other continents but who expect to die here. I myself was born on a farm in a religious community that preached the “evils” of the “big city.” I am now living in that “big city” and expect to die here.
My Dog and the Flowers on the Farm, Summer 2000
Spring Garden in the City, 2006
Photo Collage of My Transition from Rural to Urban
The Home of my Soul
This is the farm where I grew up, and I had fantasies of owning it, dying there, knowing that in real life it was not to be. But I loved that farm. It was the home of my soul, my dearest wish.
Obviously, in that “Place Where Wishes Come True,” some much-needed repairs would have been done, but I’m good with fixing things to meet my visions so that’s no problem in my fantasyland.
But here’s the real home of my soul.
That’s my sister sitting at the water’s edge. All photos are July 2 2012. The farm has been sold out of the family, the old barn pulled down, a new one built in a different location. My sister shared a photo that she took earlier this year when she went by. All I’ve got left is memories but they are vivid. No one can take them from me.
That is a sad truth about aging.
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