Write Team: Every living thing has a life span

I retired 10 years ago. Neither the kid I was, the person I later became, or the 72-year-old I am now has a clue where the time went. It’s gone though. No doubt about that.

Each year of retirement makes me more aware of changes taking place in those around me. I’ve lived in this same small town for 46 years among old friends and new, some scattered, some held close. Each added year makes the circles I travel in smaller and brings the people I encounter there into sharper focus. There’s a familiarity among the folks I’m around who are no longer paid to work. We’re aging together in place.

Did we always change like this, or was I not paying attention? The changes I see in my friends are subtle. A footstep is held a moment too long to regain balance. An arm pulls harder on a handrail to get up the stairs. A torso leans to one side favoring a sore back. A blank look appears on the face of one who didn’t quite hear the question. Tiny signs of decline.

And then we notice it in ourselves. My least favorite is conversation that grinds to a halt when a name escapes me. I was whistling a song as I walked in the YMCA. My friend heard me.

“Who sings that song?”

“It’s a song by The Band. ‘Up on Cripple Creek.’ Drummer sings lead vocals. You know his name.”

Silence.

“Great gravelly voice. You know who I mean. Had throat cancer. Died fairly young.”

My friend is a music fan. He knew who I was talking about.

“Oh shoot, I can see him sitting in the middle of that trap set singing into the mic.”

“Me too. We’ll both remember later.”

Twenty minutes after that, while swimming laps, his name came to me. Levon Helm. I’ve known him since the 60′s. Where do those things hide in our brains? What’s happening up there?

We had an ash tree trimmed in our front yard. We planted it in the late 80s and nursed it through the ash borer crisis. A branch was brushing shingles on the roof. A couple of low limbs died. We found a good tree guy to look at it.

“You got a lot of low growth on this tree. I’d trim it back and shift the growth to the top. It’ll look like a kid with a fresh haircut at first, but in the long run you’ll get good shade from a higher canopy. I mean, I could take it down, but I think you can get more years out of it.”

We took his advice. We like that tree in the front yard, but it’s the towering oaks in the back yard we value most. They were mature when we bought the house. Five trees about the same size. They shaded the back yard beautifully. The squirrels and the birds love them as much as we do.

We lost one majestic oak and planted an oak sapling in its place. A second oak is on its last legs. We trimmed it back two years ago, but it continues to die.

The tree guy could see dead branches on the crown above the roof of the house from the front yard.

“What about that one?” We walked around the house for a closer look.

“I’m afraid that oak is a goner.”

“I figured. How old you think it is?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if it was 200 years old. But even oaks don’t last forever. Every living thing has a life span. You can’t fight it.”

We sure want to though. Don’t we?

Dave McClure lives in Ottawa. He is a long-retired director of a local private agency. He is also a blogger. You can read more of Dave at Daveintheshack.blogger.com