JAN 20, 14 .. GORDY .. THIS ONE’S FOR YOU ..

By Cap Chastain January 20, 2014 Becoming a Senior, Gord - 48025, Touch Base

Gordy is one of my close friends. Gordy reads and follows and supports my web site here. Recently Gordy experienced what I consider to be a ‘life-changing-event’. While assisting a friend (NO good-deed goes unpunished Gordy!) he fell and broke his hip. Gordy now uses a ‘walker’ to get-around and will-do-so for awhile. Aging is not for sissies Gordy.

I believe that a major part of life is to support and to share-with-our-friends our own actual individual experience, strength and hope with the wish that somehow in some small way it will assist them in their walk-of-life. So here we go Gordy. I write ‘This One’s For You My Friend’ hoping that in some small way someone else may glean a little support for their own life-journey reading along here with the two-of-us Gordy.

Gordy I know .. Gordy I understand .. Gordy I am with you .. because Gordy I have-been-there myself.

I intended to call this Post .. ‘An Ode To Gordy’. I researched the word ‘ode’ and it does not fit as a title for this Post. An ‘ode’ is more of a poem as I understand the word. This is not a poem in any sense.

Gordy .. like myself .. both into-our 70s .. is no longer a proverbial ‘spring chicken’. And this is where I shall begin.

I had .. for some odd reason beyond my own understanding .. a very difficult time with my turning age 60 back in September of 1996. At age 60 and more-so at age 65 one canNOT validly claim to be in middle-age. At age 60 and pretty-much-universally at age 65 one becomes a Senior Citizen.

I did a lot of writing about this at-that-time. My writing and admission did NOT give me acceptance.

Two words in our vocabulary apply here.

Admission and Acceptance.

Admission. The phrase .. “I admit!” .. can and often is said to some degree with teeth and fists clenched and arms and legs crossed and the thought of ‘gr-r-r-r-r’ going around in our minds.

Acceptance. The phrase .. “I accept.” .. comes with a smile and hopefully some degree of relaxed, warm and gentle life-philosophy and wisdom accompanying it. CRITICAL to this word accept or acceptance is this sometimes little-known philosophy: Acceptance does NOT mean approval! What is .. IS!

Back in the spring and summer and into the autumn of 1996 I could ADMIT that I was about to become and did become age 60. Full acceptance was not to come to me for another eight or so years.

On Saturday, March 6th, 2004, my acceptance of being a Senior Citizen began. I was in dowtown Anchorage to witness the beginning of the world famous Iditarod Sled Dog Race. I was one-block-away from the starting line, walking on the sidewalk, and instantly I was suddenly in-the-air as I spun 180 degrees around and came down facing the direction from whence I had just come landing squarely upon my two knees. The pain was so intense that people in a two-block-radius must have heard my scream-of-pain!

To the emergency room I went. My left knee-cap was broken in two places. LUCKILY my right knee-cap was just fine. A bit battered and bruised but NOT broken. I called Patti from the ER and asked her to come and pick-me-up and home we came .. my left leg in an ankle-to-hip cast.

(Patti wants to interject the following clarification: Yes! Cap did go to the ER but he went several hours after he fell because his son was here and he wanted to watch the entire starting process of the Iditarod with his son holding him upright as he hobbled around in pain. He did leave the ER with me but first we two went to lunch with five friends downtown and we did not return home immediately.)

What to do? Where to go to give Patti some daily quiet time and some ‘space’? I am NOT necessarily an easy person to be with 24/7.

AH! Got It! I began to go daily to our local Anchorage Senior Center to eat lunch and to watch cable-televison-sports and to read in the library and to just ‘hang-out’.

About ‘day two’ into my Senior Center routine I noticed:

1. Most of the others were gray of hair. As was I.

2. Many of the others were walking with a cane or a ‘walker’. As was I.

3. They all looked like Senior Citizens. I looked like them.

4. It dawned-upon-me (IF it is yellow and it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck and it acts like a duck .. duh-h-h-h-h IT MAY WELL BE A DUCK!) that INDEED I HAD BECOME A SENIOR CITIZEN.

And I was very accepting of this fact-of-my-life.

So Gordy Ol’ Buddy .. what is the message here? One fact is simply that we truly ARE Senior Citizens. We are NO LONGER quite what we used-to-be. KNOW that we are NOT alone on this life-journey of aging. Look around and relate to our fellow passengers on the ship-of-aging.

I got though it and so too will you. Will recovery be easy? Not always so take-it-easy when the going gets a tad tough physically and more so mentally. Take deep breaths and smile. Do life one-day-at-a-time. It is OK to say “NO I am not able to do that.” whatever ‘that’ may be Gordy. I found that hanging-out at our senior center was both fun and rewarding. I was able to assist some other seniors not quite so fortunate as was I. I KNEW I would recover and I knew that some of them would never fully recover.

In closing let me assure you that .. with cane and ice-spike in hand .. I SURE AM ATTEMPTING TO BE CAREFUL NOT TO FALL especially now during the winter up here. The thought of another fall is of much concern to me.

Gordy we will continue to-be-in-touch! Smiles .. Cap

Gordy we may be in our winter-of-life but there is still much beauty isn’t there!