#22, May 30, 2015, Shedding

This is the next in the series of transcriptions from my journal, written during the last year of Dave's life.

Midnight.

A day full of awareness of the passage of time.

Attending Katie’s wedding—them so young and Dave in a walker.

Then Bryan brought a friend to buy the tractor and take it home with him and he brought his two children, ages 8 and 4, who called Dave “the old man” and me grandma.

Then Davie, Bryan’s oldest friend, posted a video taken at the race track on September 1, 1985, when we were all, those of us who are old now, the same ages as our children are today—in the primes of our lives and looking it, but having no awareness of being there. Just like our children do not have now.

I think I would give something to feel that strong blood moving again, but my soul is occupied these days with shedding a body no longer worthy of it, one that can no longer participate in that kind of glory.

But we had it, that glory. Full, ripe, and bursting with juice. Oh, we had it.

image: sharonreed.me

#21, May 28, 2015, Peeling Apart

This is the next in a series of excerpts from my journal, written during the last year of Dave's life.

 

It’s 6:30AM and the sun is shining completely over the horizon and content with its temporary command of both horizons. 

I’ve been trying to think what’s different. Old people are fond of saying that they still feel young inside, like they were 20 still, and full of hope and as agile as if every possibility still offered itself. That’s true. I still think that if I tried hard enough, I could bench press 200 pounds again, or do an hour’s worth of vigorous aerobics, or make love all night, or fly. But I can’t. I can’t and am not used to the inability.

Soul and body are beginning to part. The body fails—not my flesh, but memory and quickness—but everything that matters remains the same. It’s supposed to. It has to. That’s the part meant to peel itself off eventually and return to eternity.

image: stylecraze.com

#20, May 24, 2015, Striding

This is the next in a series of excerpts from my journal, written during the last year of Dave's life.

 I’m starting to get a sense of what’s different. It’s not just getting old and it’s not just tending to an ever-weakening Dave with all the accompanying sadness. It’s making decisions, taking independent-feeling steps that, for the first time, do not lead from one man to another, not even from one person to another. I am not striving, but striding. Not wanting to have, but wanting to be. I feel, at least today, strong and stable—less cowed, less cornered. I think I’m learning now, nearer the end of my life, how to live it.

image: youtube.com