I found out the other day that the 87-year-old mom of one of my friends died near the end of December.
There was no indication whatsoever that something was really wrong, but she was very old, and most very-olds have a fragile health. She “simply” didn’t wake up.
At 80, she was still feeling very good, but in the last couple of years her health had deteriorated and she had been experiencing edema in both her legs and her lungs — which probably meant that her heart was getting weaker. And then her heart gave up altogether.
The thing is that life is like a tidal wave, and the older you get, the closer you get to your own personal crest. When a person is 80, he or she is already pretty far ahead of the crowd — and as you know, the chance of getting 90 or 100 for an 80-year-old is much higher than for a 40-year-old — but it gets steeper and harder nonetheless.
Give that person another 10 years, and he or she will be much more tired of constantly swimming against the wave. One single hesitation is enough to make the 90-year-old disappear — think breathing in a chickpea during supper, which turns into a pneumonia, and then a coffin in the end. Think breaking an ankle which doesn’t heal and then dying three weeks later from the infection. Think about the very hesitation of life.
The height of the wave is the difference.
The last thing my friend’s mom said to him was: “I want to live another 5 years,” —
“Only not like this.”
SOURCES: Francisco Goya, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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