Just got off the phone from my Aunty Joan. Strictly speaking she is my Great Aunt, but her husband (my Grandmother's brother) was 20 years older than her.
She is now 91 years old - yet I always refer to her as the youngest oldest person I know. If you spoke to her on the phone you would be hard put to put an age to her voice.
She has always been an inspiration to me. She never had children and was one of the first female role models around where I could see that having children was not a prerequisite for happiness.
She was one of the first women policewomen in the UK and has always had a healthy, happy and hearty attitude to life. She was living in Rhodesia in the 50's and very much the ex pat colonial lifestyle.
I have always found her so approachable and we chat about boyfriends, life and love.
Today chatting we talked about old age.. Me thinks I will get all the hints that I can on how to deal with the particular stage of life.
I suppose it is a cliche but we discussed that one's whole life and the strengths and personality that we create in our lifes goes towards helping us through this difficult stage of non life. Where one's quality and spectrum of life starts to zero in to a chair in your lounge. She is now almost blind but so enjoys listening to the radio and to listening books and the phone is her lifeline and just so happy to have any human contact and interaction.
She said that it is important to lead as full a life as possible... as there will come time you can't. I remember my Mother and seeing her spirit fade when she realised that her quality of life - or the great Star Trek quote 'life as we know it' was to be no more.
So don't stagnate.. life is for living... and ironically if we live our life... then it makes it better to face our death...
So here's to tomorrow................
The top 5 regrets people have on their deathbed
31st May 2011 by Courtney Boyd Myers
http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2011/05/31/the-top-5-regrets-people-make-on-their-deathbeds/
No comments:
Post a Comment