What’s the Point of Growing Old?

Crow’s Feet prompt #28: Advice on aging

My mother died at 96; her sister at 103.

For each, two years too late.

No age is easy.

Betty Davis had a pillow that said: “Old age ain’t for sissies.”

In the 7th grade, I called Tom G. a sissy.

To be cool, to fit in, with the in-crowd.

Cowardly cruelty.

At 73, I know cruelty better than at 13.

And no longer care about fitting in.

Joan Chittister, in The Gift of Years, wrote:

Time has done for us what needs to be done.

Frederick Douglas, in An Oration in the Memory of Abraham Lincoln, said:

Fellow citizens, whatever else in this world may be partial, unjust, and uncertain, time, Time! is impartial, just, and certain in its action. In the realm of mind, as well as in the realm of matter, it is a great worker, and often works wonders.

Time has matured me.

To help with the world’s needs

For less cruelty and fewer robots.

If not me, who.

If not now, when.