Dad turned 99 today.
Hell of a lot of candles, eh?
He won't be alone for his birthday. He will have the warm attention of my brother, and my sister, and everyone at the rest home, the most thoughtful attentive and considerate people you could ever know. On Saturday there will be a birthday dinner, all of us together. But of course all of us means something different now.
It has always been his way to ask a question obliquely. He will ask now and then, Do you know where Gran's living these days? The news can still be a jolt to him, even if a gradually lessening one.
If you live long enough, your world will change beyond recognition. Of the people who were alive when he was born, more than 99.97% of them are gone.
It's true he lived through a century of technological wonder, but outside of the chainsaw and the TV that didn't make all that much of a difference to his daily life. He's never had the need of a computer or a cellphone.
He has, though, while I've been away, been fitted with a new generation of hearing aid and I'm hoping that this weekend he might be able to make out what I'm saying again. We really haven't been able to have a meaningful conversation for years now. If I have something to tell him, I write it down like this.
99. You would not think to look at him that he has so many years on him. I wrote a while ago about the Blue Zones TV series that took us to pockets of the planet where the way of daily life seems to have given them extraordinary longevity. There were a couple of scenes of a lean wiry man on horseback, well into his 80s, still very strong and at ease riding. Damned if it wasn't the very image of my Dad, same build, same posture, same set of the face. He has lived the Blue Zone daily life: active, purposeful, measured in all things.
The older I get, the more I grasp that the example was right there for me to follow but no, I knew better. Gave up the booze just in time, still working on the impulsiveness.
You would not think to look at him today that he was a man of 99; after he has repeated the same question to you several times, you will know that the years have actually claimed some toll. But heās smiling, he's glad to see you, he enjoys bantering, heās content. Heās in a good Blue Zone.
Happy birthday, Dad, see you this weekend. But not early; I'll be driving down at your pace.
