These Are the People I Grow Old With
It is said: “friends are the family you choose.”
Lisa and I have chosen well.
Across over 20 years, we have created family with a group of dear friends. We share all of life’s grand markers, happy and sad. We share the lives of our children and grandchildren. We revel in luscious food and drink, we play and chat and laugh, we carouse late into the night (perhaps not that late any more). We care for one another, through good times and bad, in sickness and health.
These are the people I grow old with.
There’s a 20+ year span from our eldest to our youngest and our eldest recently celebrated his 80th birthday. In the near future, we’ll celebrate a few more such milestone birthdays. None of us are throwing in the towel, but it is undeniable that we’re growing old. Already we have faced a few health scares, and a litany of lesser ailments. We try not to dwell on that.
We grow old in front of our children and grandchildren, but we don’t grow old with them. They are entrenched in slices of life we have left far behind. They may appreciate us, tolerate us, beseech us, enjoy time with us, but they cannot fathom what we go through as we age. Instead, we grow old with friends, people at the same station in life, people who dine/travel/play like we do, people who jam to our music, people aging along with us.
These are the people I grow old with.
I’ve heard most of their stories, but still enjoy the retelling, each time a little different, each time still funny or daring or poignant. Yes, sometimes I tire of hearing a story one more time, but I tolerate it knowing they may feel the same about some of my stories.
At golf, or cornhole, or table games, we’re still as competitive as in our youth, but these days we don’t linger on the outcomes. I suppose we’re just happy to still be playing the game, especially now that we have more time for such entertainments.
My people are skilled and adventurous chefs, each of us trying to live up to the high standards set by the others, though now it seems we want to spend less time in the kitchen and more at the dining table. We delight in sharing a new recipe, a fancy cocktail, a brilliant wine, a fabulous restaurant. Sometimes we delight too much and pay the consequences the next morning.
Given that we met via a Unitarian Universalist church, it’s not surprising that we share most of life’s significant ideologies — spirituality, family, politics. We discuss everything, exploring the angles, preaching to our own choir. Sometimes we offer wisdom, but often simply comfort, as we help each other adapt to issues that arrive in our lives.
As I write this, two of our members are in the hospital, each facing a serious diagnosis. This is deeply troubling, the flag of our mortality fluttering wildly in our faces. We know where we’re headed, but we would prefer it’s far into the future.
I cry out for healthy outcomes, because these are the people I grow old with.
They are family.
I love them so.
