Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Staying in the Life Outside
When summer turned to fall, the old man closed the window, not because he was cold, not yet, but because he thought he might be cold soon. And he didn’t want to be found lying dead on the bedroom floor in deep winter with snow heaped around him, the pipes in the house all frozen. It would make people think he was demented, not just old, and he couldn’t have that.
He didn’t know how many days or weeks he had left, so it was better to close the window now and just be done with it. So that’s what he did.
Then he waited. He sat down and waited. Many things had surprised him in his life but death wouldn’t. He knew it was coming. Any minute. The window was closed.
When I turned 65, I felt like I had been diagnosed with a terminal disease and had only ten years to live as a relatively healthy person and possibly another ten years as a demented bother. Twenty years tops, I thought, ticking them off. There would be no more extra time for me, what I had already lived needed to be sufficient.
Let me tell you, sum certain is so unpleasant after a lifetime of sum sufficient. Depressing, airless.
Noticing the increasingly stale air, I kept finding new ways to accommodate, putting out fresh flowers and cooking things with cinnamon. I can get through this, I thought, I just have to be mindful of the time I have left and use it very carefully. Be serious about my devotions, spare in my commitments, focused on exactly the right things. What are the right things, I’d ask, and then realize that asking was itself using up precious time and space. The meter runs faster when the cab is parked.
If I am feeling this way, other older adults are as well. Millions of us are sitting on our upholstered death rows looking at our closed windows and wondering why it’s so fucking hot in here.
We have only ourselves to blame. We decided to close the window in anticipation of a short, unpleasant and fatal future. Remember, we don’t want our dead frozen selves to be covered with snow that blew in through the window we failed to close because we refused to anticipate the inevitable.
What if we ditched anticipation altogether? Anticipation is just dread spelled with more letters. Should our remaining time on earth be dreadful?
I realized just today that I could live thirty years in this state of anticipation (dread). I could end up spending a third of my life watching the life on my street through a storm window.
The waiting will kill me. I just figured that out.
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This post was inspired by a piece I read in the September 8-15 , 2014 issue of Time Magazine, called What is the Good Life? It’s about a man who died at 109 and apparently never thought to close the window.
25 Comments on “Staying in the Life Outside”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
Oy! Thank goodness I’m not at that stage..Thanks for the fore-warning, Jan! I’m making it a point to never close the window!
Reblogged this on Praying for Eyebrowz and commented:
Keep your windows open! What a great piece from Jan Wilberg.
Brilliant!
My Dad is 88, He has been a “numbers” guy his whole life. he read some where that people that go into independent living usually die after 5 years. So he has been in Independent living for 2 years and he plans to die at 91. He will be so surprised on his 92rd birthday. He is so healthy. He walks every day and watch CNN. Knows more about politics than most.
Reblogged this on Red's Wrap.
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My perfectly healthy mom turns 65 this November. My sister and I recently got an email from her with a subject of “Re: death folder” She’s getting her ducks in a row…I’m going to send this post to her so she opens the damn window again!
Ha! I’ve written that same email. Oh man. We need to prop those windows open with sticks.
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I’ve often said that is exactly how my grandmother spent the end of her life… in the chair watching the world go by her window. It always broke my heart to know how alone she was after having nine kids and who knows how many grandkids.
I hope you have lots more time and great people with whom you can spend it!
Watching the world go by is narcotic, I think. I’m going to just say no for a while.
Absolutely loved this. At 53, and having had a heart attack at 48, the mortality question is always on my mind and I fight to just live in the moment. Thanks for sharing this. It was a powerful reminder.
Thanks Meg — I think I will need plenty of reminding as time goes on.
I’m a little younger myself, but the concept of existential crises in the face of mortality can hit at the most random of moments. I hope that your window is open more often than not, and I’ll try to remember to do the same. I really do love the way that you write, and what you write.
What a wonderful thing to see in print. Thank you for reading my blog.
This is inspiring and meaningful. It made me think of my parents and my friends who are over 65. I hope they are all out there living to the fullest and not busy worrying about closing the window. I’m glad you shared your realization with us and I wish you many adventures. Heck, maybe even leave the window open when you’re out living it up!
I also loved the line about the meter running faster when the cab is parked.
I really loved this! I just turned 50 and am starting to think about this, especially since cancer has already tried to kill me twice (I6 and 19 years ago). I like Helen’s comment. Let it snow!
I’ve heard more talk like this lately – as if the rest of life is a ticking clock to be run down, and to be sure that everything is in place for the last few years – from my mom and paternal grandmother. It often creeped me right out, but your piece illuminated what that reality, that potential mindset, looks and feels like. Thank you!
You took the words right out of my mind, Jan. I figure I have 10 good years and then some not so good years. I am trying to make the most of the first 10, and my current tactic is being present in the beauty of each moment. I’m not afraid of dying, but I’m not looking forward to the bad years before that. Thanks for a great post.
I love this line, “Anticipation is just dread spelled with more letters.” Lovely piece!
my dad is 80 and constantly telling me he’s “living life like a dead person”. 🙁 a part of me gets what he’s saying– he lives alone in a retirement community where most of the residents are in much worse shape than he is. i don’t visit enough, i don’t call enough. 🙁 i don’t know what my point here is other than i really appreciate this post and am glad you’re trying to quit waiting for it.
Waiting for death is about the scariest notion ever and it truly can ruin a life. Your piece struck a cord with me. “The meter runs fast when the cab is parked.” Love that.
I’d love the window to be open to new possibilities, to adventure, fresh air and brimming with life.
This whole thing is just beautiful, Jan. I’m so glad that I came across it via YeahWrite. 🙂
I’m approaching it from the opposite direction (I’m 71). Life never turns out the way you expect, and if I’m covered in snow, what difference will it make? So I don’t bother thinking about death. It’ll get me when it gets me, and meanwhile, now is forever.