Esoteric ideas about your aging and health can take on sharper edges when you witness it happening to your parents
I sat beside my mom on the rough wooden bench just outside our cabin door, gazing with wonder at the billions of stars dazzling over the dark jagged peaks of Zion Canyon. We were sharing a hard cider, toasting a long day of hiking, while my dad drifted off to sleep inside. But the flavor of the apple ale was nearly overcome by the intense smell of lidocaine drifting on the breeze from my mother’s neck and back. Tough as she was — I could barely keep up sometimes, and I’m no slouch on a mountain trail — she was hurting.
It was a distinct moment in a trip full of such occasions, when I first truly noticed not only how my parents were aging, but what it might imply for my not-so-distant future. And the reality of impending limitations and mortality was suddenly a far stronger assault to my sense of peace than any lidocaine pain patch.
Most of us grow up certain of our invincibility. It leads to questionable choices like sledding down a hill full of trees or drinking a lot of peach schnapps. If we’re fortunate, there’s little major sickness or loss in our youth to debunk this notion.
Somehow, we even face the illness or death of a grandparent or friend with the idea that these things happen to someone else…
