Loud and never-ending shouts

For a physically-healthy middle-aged man, life can be great and a decoy to what’s really going on in his gracefully-aging journey.  

And that is a slow erosion of many types – cognitive and physiological for example – that at the moment may be so subtle that it escapes our attention-deficit awareness.

But sooner or later this aging-onset decline will manifest itself for even the blindest of the blind to see and I will not be spared this “misery.” 

“Why didn’t someone tell me this was happening?” may one day be my utter to those witnessing me in my lament.

And this witness may be me talking to myself while looking in a mirror wondering what happened to that 16-year-old kid who for so long was my trusted daily imaginary companion during early-morning grooming sessions in preparation for another day of conquering my world.

Sometimes this reality awareness comes to us in what we witness in a sick spouse, parent or close friend suffering from more obviously-recognizable cognitive decline, chronic pain, and physical illness in an assortment of aging-onset maladies that forever change the quality of their lives; placing them closer, day-by-day and moment-by-moment, to their eventual encounter with the end of their lives. 

Some handle it better than others preferring to reflect on their yesteryear life so blessed with good health and vigor while others, perhaps feeling betrayed, might be inclined to take a short walk off a high cliff.

It’s not always a fun thing to watch because it reminds us that our day will come.

Yes my day will come.  Honestly, it comes each day but now only in whispers that cumulatively in time will be loud and never-ending shouts.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum