I miss my Mom, she died four years ago. I still weep. Like Eolake's mother my Mom wasn't the happiest person around either. I think her bi-polar issues had a lot to do with that. Sometimes I wish I could join her in Heaven.......but then I'd miss my children and grandaughter. Her passing has made me incredibly sad. She taught me everything. I go to her grave (when I can trust my emotions) and I speak to her. But alas, she can't answer me back. It's ironic you posted this(or I have read your post) on the 13th day. My Mom died on the 13th of April. She always told me that 13 was her lucky number. Coincidence or destiny? I'll never know. But now that number has stained my heart forever. Do you miss your Mom Eolake as much as I do mine?
I must say I've changed my attitude towards elderly people during the last few years. I used to think they live in a different world of their own. But no, they all once incorporated the same sort of beautiful or at least nice ladies we domai people admire so much. Yes ageing takes its toll, and elderlies, with all their wrinkles, have many a story to tell. I remember I saw a nice picture of your mum somewhere on your website, Eolake. Withering is the way of life, it's not a thing to be ashamed of.
"Sometimes I wish I could join her in Heaven" Terry, All shall come in due time. You'll meet again. Until then, live your life.
"Do you miss your Mom Eolake as much as I do mine?" Sounds like that Era song. I like Era.
Some people around me have left. When you cared for them it always leaves a huge feeling of emptiness. And that's normal, you'll always feel it. We are not meant to fill this space in our hearts with a replacement, only to compensate with other fullness that has its own place. There'll always be more than enough room.
I once lost a friend whom I had only known for two days. He was 10. I'm glad I took the time to know him, it meant a lot to him. And to his parents. Never, ever, be afraid to love. You KNOW one day it'll hurt, but it's a very small price for what it brings you. What really hurts is missing an occasion to love until it's too late.
"I would not call it withering." So true. I mentioned the mark of life. It's normal that life marks mothers in particular. And they are beautiful marks. They tell the love and the worries and the dedication. It's just that the story of their soul is so abundant, the space on a face becomes insufficient to fit all these lines.
I love a baby's face: it's all new and fresh and full of promises. But also an elderly person's face. It's just the long maturation of all that this life has been. A long, often interesting story.
"The person inside the body need never age." To quote Sean Connery (in an ad, but it was quite nice): "Some age, others mature". Maturity is just noble. And age? Well, some people were old and bitter even before becoming teenagers! It's all within.
"A part of us is immortal" I might add : even if nobody consciously remembers you any more, your impact on the world will always be there. In the continuum.
"A part of us is immortal" I might add : even if nobody consciously remembers you any more, your impact on the world will always be there. In the continuum.
Pascal, that's right. The end here is only the start of eternity for us. Also Congratulations to LT.
I think Pascal deserves recognition also. He's quite the thinker and writer. (Hint Hint Eolake) :)
lu/tw said: "I would not call it withering. The person inside the body need never age. And though the body grows weak and dies, the spirit of the person carries on. "
An interesting isssue. Is here anybody aged 80 plus or so who could answer my question: Do you feel your core (=personality) is as vivid as it used to be when you were young, but you're unable to transmit it to the outside world because your ability to convey it has deteriorated due to your aged body?
I'm thinking of my mother-in-law. She is in her mid-80s, just sits in her chair, unable to communicate. She used to be very active and was/is very intelligent until she was 70 or so.
Speaking of myself: I feel like my young mind sits in the cage of my withering 55-year old body. Is my mind going to deteriorate when I get older?
Remember that our mind sits in the brain which is biological computer, and its nerve cells WILL deteriorate.
Will the bars of the cage become an unpenetrable wall later? This prospect scares me a lot.
I think the mind is going to get blunt with age, it might even become indifferent to signals from the outside, mercifully helping us endure the waning of our body.
Do we need a God again for solving this riddle? He'd be of tremendous help, indeed. Yet I'm an explorer, and the unknown tickles.
"I think Pascal deserves recognition also." Thank you very much, Terry, but as LT points out, I've won the previous award. (Which was also the first.) If I weren't the modestest person in the world, I'd be bragging right now. ;-) But seriously, it's nice to have an opportunity to congratulate another talented commentator, and I hope to be considered off-competition until at least several more have had their recognition too! (That's self-evident, I believe.) That road still goes a long way, I'm sure. I do it for the pleasure of it.
And I like to give as much as to receive. (I'll never forget that one Christmas with a very happy little girl opening each of her presents with shrieks of joy! Litterally.)
Oh, and remember guys: "A part of us is immoral", too. So keep listening to that conscience, okay? ;-)
Gen, If you're here with us, you're not totally letting your mind rot in a silent corner now, are you? It's funny, I can never tell one of you guys' age just by the way you talk. It's as if we're just a group of mature thinking people, period.
I think the main thing that keeps many elderly people from communicating/transmitting is not so much the age of the body, but the attitude of the mind. When you view yourself as having become just a piece of furniture standing in the way, or see no better thing to share than the same self-centered stories you tell twice a week, then -and only then- you're too old. My grandma is 86, and even though she tends to drone at times, she still loves to joke at EVERY occasion, and even to play childish pranks on her own children! Once, my mother had a big fright when she thought somebody was trying to snatch her purse from behind on the street in broad daylight. You should've seen that rascally hilarious granny's face then! "Mom, you almost scared me to death!"
"its nerve cells WILL deteriorate." Ah, yes. But this computer is extremely efficient in self-rewiring and reprogramming. And it's very durable. Former dean of Mankind, Jeanne Calment (who died at age 122) had a quite tired body, but kept the sharpness of her mind all that time. To a reporter who told her on her 122nd birthday: "Well, I hope we can meet again next year", she replied: "Why not, young man? You do appear quite healthy!"
We are much more limited by our spirit than by biology. Unless we get Alzheimer's or the such, but they ARE abnormal diseases after all. When healthy, no cage needs to be holding us.
"Yet I'm an explorer, and the unknown tickles." And you claim to be an old uninteresting coot? This sentence was excellent! (Applause.) Keep faith and confidence in yourself, it is a priceless treasure.
Besides, self-pitying gramps bore me!!! ;-)
"We can take conscious control of much of what happens in the body" This is a paramount notion. The theory-obsessed clergy became blind to this fact that science has rediscovered recently : we are one, body and soul, a unit that can't be separated as long as we live. When we're sick with a mere flu, we become depressed. When we put our mind to it, we can overcome a lot of what feels like insurmountable limitations (all of them, according to some like LT). "Getting old" is primarily accepting what seems to happen to our bodily component... or over-focusing on it! That's a bit like pouring WATER on our fire. As I've said, some of us are practically BORN old. They have never had youth in their mind, or it was prematurely lost.
A few days ago, I saw a man in a TV debate who was 71. He could just as well have been 55. Serene, lucid, and sharp-minded. The wearing of the body will affect our self-perception, and it's okay not to jump around needlessly at fourty like you did at seven. Just remember : you can age, or you can mature while remaining fresh. Maybe even fizzy. :-)
Holy frig, that Jeanne Calment could have met van Gogh in Arles in 1890 when she was fifteen, and she only died in the late nineties. The *nineteen* nineties!
I looked her up on Wiki, and holy cow, she *did* meet Vincent!
She is also the person who got this famous deal:
In 1965, aged 90, with no living heirs, Jeanne Calment signed a deal, common in France, to sell her condominium apartment en viager to lawyer François Raffray. Raffray, then aged 47, agreed to pay a monthly sum until she died, an agreement sometimes called a "reverse mortgage". At the time of the deal the value of the apartment was equal to ten years of payments. Unfortunately for Raffray, not only did she survive more than thirty years, but he died first, in December 1995, of cancer, at the age of 77. His widow had to continue the payments.
Thanks folks for cheering me up; one can in fact hold up the ageing process, the spirit will help, too. I think the best remedy against a blunt brain is to keep learning new tricks until the lid of the coffin shuts. Even then I will make provisions to have a good book by my side for a good read.
Seriously, I'm typing this with ten fingers, I had never thought I could learn the skill until last year, when I began to self-teach me the skill from a touch-typing CD-ROM. I'm also learning Chinese with the aid of my chinese friends, so plenty of new brain cells will develop. I recently read a scientific report which in fact stated that new brain cells can develop even when you're older.
So now I fell happy and relaxed, **clackediclack with artificial teeth, and look forward to the next 20 or 30 years :--))))
Yep, the story of Jeanne's viager is quite known and amusing. I heard she even outlived the lawyer's children! Man, I wish I could manage such a good deal just ONCE! ;-)
Gen, Shutting a coffin's lid is a trick I still can't perform either. So don't feel too bad. :-) But I did learn to type with all my fingers through simple self-taught practice. It would seem that the aptitude to type with both hands isn't always present among people who use computers daily, from what I noticed. (Loving to express a lot just *might* have helped me. Maybe.) Learning Chinese? This should DEFINITELY help brain cells (or at least pathways!) develop. I believe the phonic subtlety of the language also develops musical aptitudes as a... "side effect". (Ni hao, oh venerable wise one!) Looks like you'll have to wait a bit more before becoming blunt. ;-) It's undoubtable that Sean Connery has artificial teeth, judging by hish shlight pronunshiachion peckuliaritty. ;-) He's also got all the charm, elegance and style he could ever wish, and I'll bet he's still as much a babe magnet as ever. (Heck, I'm a hetero guy, and even I think he's sexy!) Will he ever be OLD? Not sure!
P.S.: "Clackediclack"? I say, was that your keyboard or your teeth there, old boy? :-)
"This insight will score me at least two or three more new brain cells." As my mother might say : "At our age, every little bit counts." :-D
I know of a woman who can type with ten toes. Of course, she has zero fingers. No arms. Her baby child doesn't seem to mind. Ah, mothers! Forever amazing...
Oh yes, that's amazing indeed, Pascal. I have greatest difficulties moving my toes separately. Yet every year during the festive season we get invitations to make donations to people who paint the most subtle pictures with their feet, or mouth. Phew! Which proves, again, that it's just a matter of practice and endurance.
14 comments:
Eerie. There's something very reminiscent of both my grandmothers in that face. The mark of life, maybe?
May the memory of all these fine toiling women live on. Photos help.
She was not the happiest person in the world.
I miss my Mom, she died four years ago. I still weep. Like Eolake's mother my Mom wasn't the happiest person around either. I think her bi-polar issues had a lot to do with that.
Sometimes I wish I could join her in Heaven.......but then I'd miss my children and grandaughter.
Her passing has made me incredibly sad. She taught me everything. I go to her grave (when I can trust my emotions) and I speak to her. But alas, she can't answer me back.
It's ironic you posted this(or I have read your post) on the 13th day. My Mom died on the 13th of April.
She always told me that 13 was her lucky number. Coincidence or destiny? I'll never know. But now that number has stained my heart forever.
Do you miss your Mom Eolake as much as I do mine?
I must say I've changed my attitude towards elderly people during the last few years. I used to think they live in a different world of their own.
But no, they all once incorporated the same sort of beautiful or at least nice ladies we domai people admire so much. Yes ageing takes its toll, and elderlies, with all their wrinkles, have many a story to tell. I remember I saw a nice picture of your mum somewhere on your website, Eolake.
Withering is the way of life, it's not a thing to be ashamed of.
Gen(eration50plus)
"Sometimes I wish I could join her in Heaven"
Terry,
All shall come in due time. You'll meet again. Until then, live your life.
"Do you miss your Mom Eolake as much as I do mine?"
Sounds like that Era song. I like Era.
Some people around me have left. When you cared for them it always leaves a huge feeling of emptiness. And that's normal, you'll always feel it. We are not meant to fill this space in our hearts with a replacement, only to compensate with other fullness that has its own place. There'll always be more than enough room.
I once lost a friend whom I had only known for two days. He was 10. I'm glad I took the time to know him, it meant a lot to him. And to his parents.
Never, ever, be afraid to love. You KNOW one day it'll hurt, but it's a very small price for what it brings you. What really hurts is missing an occasion to love until it's too late.
"I would not call it withering."
So true. I mentioned the mark of life. It's normal that life marks mothers in particular. And they are beautiful marks. They tell the love and the worries and the dedication. It's just that the story of their soul is so abundant, the space on a face becomes insufficient to fit all these lines.
I love a baby's face: it's all new and fresh and full of promises. But also an elderly person's face. It's just the long maturation of all that this life has been. A long, often interesting story.
"The person inside the body need never age."
To quote Sean Connery (in an ad, but it was quite nice): "Some age, others mature". Maturity is just noble. And age? Well, some people were old and bitter even before becoming teenagers! It's all within.
"A part of us is immortal"
I might add : even if nobody consciously remembers you any more, your impact on the world will always be there. In the continuum.
"A part of us is immortal"
I might add : even if nobody consciously remembers you any more, your impact on the world will always be there. In the continuum.
Pascal, that's right. The end here is only the start of eternity for us. Also Congratulations to LT.
I think Pascal deserves recognition also. He's quite the thinker and writer. (Hint Hint Eolake) :)
lu/tw said: "I would not call it withering. The person inside the body need never age. And though the body grows weak and dies, the spirit of the person carries on. "
An interesting isssue. Is here anybody aged 80 plus or so who could answer my question: Do you feel your core (=personality) is as vivid as it used to be when you were young, but you're unable to transmit it to the outside world because your ability to convey it has deteriorated due to your aged body?
I'm thinking of my mother-in-law. She is in her mid-80s, just sits in her chair, unable to communicate. She used to be very active and was/is very intelligent until she was 70 or so.
Speaking of myself: I feel like my young mind sits in the cage of my withering 55-year old body. Is my mind going to deteriorate when I get older?
Remember that our mind sits in the brain which is biological computer, and its nerve cells WILL deteriorate.
Will the bars of the cage become an unpenetrable wall later?
This prospect scares me a lot.
I think the mind is going to get blunt with age, it might even become indifferent to signals from the outside, mercifully helping us endure the waning of our body.
Do we need a God again for solving this riddle? He'd be of tremendous help, indeed.
Yet I'm an explorer, and the unknown tickles.
Gen.
"I think Pascal deserves recognition also."
Thank you very much, Terry, but as LT points out, I've won the previous award. (Which was also the first.) If I weren't the modestest person in the world, I'd be bragging right now. ;-)
But seriously, it's nice to have an opportunity to congratulate another talented commentator, and I hope to be considered off-competition until at least several more have had their recognition too! (That's self-evident, I believe.) That road still goes a long way, I'm sure. I do it for the pleasure of it.
And I like to give as much as to receive. (I'll never forget that one Christmas with a very happy little girl opening each of her presents with shrieks of joy! Litterally.)
Oh, and remember guys: "A part of us is immoral", too. So keep listening to that conscience, okay? ;-)
Gen,
If you're here with us, you're not totally letting your mind rot in a silent corner now, are you?
It's funny, I can never tell one of you guys' age just by the way you talk. It's as if we're just a group of mature thinking people, period.
I think the main thing that keeps many elderly people from communicating/transmitting is not so much the age of the body, but the attitude of the mind. When you view yourself as having become just a piece of furniture standing in the way, or see no better thing to share than the same self-centered stories you tell twice a week, then -and only then- you're too old. My grandma is 86, and even though she tends to drone at times, she still loves to joke at EVERY occasion, and even to play childish pranks on her own children! Once, my mother had a big fright when she thought somebody was trying to snatch her purse from behind on the street in broad daylight. You should've seen that rascally hilarious granny's face then! "Mom, you almost scared me to death!"
"its nerve cells WILL deteriorate."
Ah, yes. But this computer is extremely efficient in self-rewiring and reprogramming. And it's very durable. Former dean of Mankind, Jeanne Calment (who died at age 122) had a quite tired body, but kept the sharpness of her mind all that time. To a reporter who told her on her 122nd birthday: "Well, I hope we can meet again next year", she replied: "Why not, young man? You do appear quite healthy!"
We are much more limited by our spirit than by biology. Unless we get Alzheimer's or the such, but they ARE abnormal diseases after all. When healthy, no cage needs to be holding us.
"Yet I'm an explorer, and the unknown tickles."
And you claim to be an old uninteresting coot? This sentence was excellent! (Applause.)
Keep faith and confidence in yourself, it is a priceless treasure.
Besides, self-pitying gramps bore me!!! ;-)
"We can take conscious control of much of what happens in the body"
This is a paramount notion. The theory-obsessed clergy became blind to this fact that science has rediscovered recently : we are one, body and soul, a unit that can't be separated as long as we live. When we're sick with a mere flu, we become depressed. When we put our mind to it, we can overcome a lot of what feels like insurmountable limitations (all of them, according to some like LT). "Getting old" is primarily accepting what seems to happen to our bodily component... or over-focusing on it! That's a bit like pouring WATER on our fire.
As I've said, some of us are practically BORN old. They have never had youth in their mind, or it was prematurely lost.
A few days ago, I saw a man in a TV debate who was 71. He could just as well have been 55. Serene, lucid, and sharp-minded. The wearing of the body will affect our self-perception, and it's okay not to jump around needlessly at fourty like you did at seven. Just remember : you can age, or you can mature while remaining fresh. Maybe even fizzy. :-)
Holy frig, that Jeanne Calment could have met van Gogh in Arles in 1890 when she was fifteen, and she only died in the late nineties. The *nineteen* nineties!
I looked her up on Wiki, and holy cow, she *did* meet Vincent!
She is also the person who got this famous deal:
In 1965, aged 90, with no living heirs, Jeanne Calment signed a deal, common in France, to sell her condominium apartment en viager to lawyer François Raffray. Raffray, then aged 47, agreed to pay a monthly sum until she died, an agreement sometimes called a "reverse mortgage". At the time of the deal the value of the apartment was equal to ten years of payments. Unfortunately for Raffray, not only did she survive more than thirty years, but he died first, in December 1995, of cancer, at the age of 77. His widow had to continue the payments.
Thanks folks for cheering me up; one can in fact hold up the ageing process, the spirit will help, too.
I think the best remedy against a blunt brain is to keep learning new tricks until the lid of the coffin shuts. Even then I will make provisions to have a good book by my side for a good read.
Seriously, I'm typing this with ten fingers, I had never thought I could learn the skill until last year, when I began to self-teach me the skill from a touch-typing CD-ROM.
I'm also learning Chinese with the aid of my chinese friends, so plenty of new brain cells will develop. I recently read a scientific report which in fact stated that new brain cells can develop even when you're older.
So now I fell happy and relaxed, **clackediclack with artificial teeth,
and look forward to the next 20 or 30 years
:--))))
Gen/DOM.
Yesssss Pascal, I know a person with 10 fingers has still to be born.
This insight will score me at least two or three more new brain cells.
;-))
Yep, the story of Jeanne's viager is quite known and amusing. I heard she even outlived the lawyer's children! Man, I wish I could manage such a good deal just ONCE! ;-)
Gen,
Shutting a coffin's lid is a trick I still can't perform either. So don't feel too bad. :-)
But I did learn to type with all my fingers through simple self-taught practice. It would seem that the aptitude to type with both hands isn't always present among people who use computers daily, from what I noticed. (Loving to express a lot just *might* have helped me. Maybe.)
Learning Chinese? This should DEFINITELY help brain cells (or at least pathways!) develop. I believe the phonic subtlety of the language also develops musical aptitudes as a... "side effect". (Ni hao, oh venerable wise one!) Looks like you'll have to wait a bit more before becoming blunt. ;-)
It's undoubtable that Sean Connery has artificial teeth, judging by hish shlight pronunshiachion peckuliaritty. ;-) He's also got all the charm, elegance and style he could ever wish, and I'll bet he's still as much a babe magnet as ever. (Heck, I'm a hetero guy, and even I think he's sexy!) Will he ever be OLD? Not sure!
P.S.: "Clackediclack"? I say, was that your keyboard or your teeth there, old boy? :-)
"This insight will score me at least two or three more new brain cells."
As my mother might say : "At our age, every little bit counts." :-D
I know of a woman who can type with ten toes. Of course, she has zero fingers. No arms. Her baby child doesn't seem to mind. Ah, mothers! Forever amazing...
Oh yes, that's amazing indeed, Pascal. I have greatest difficulties moving my toes separately. Yet every year during the festive season we get invitations to make donations to people who paint the most subtle pictures with their feet, or mouth.
Phew!
Which proves, again, that it's just a matter of practice and endurance.
Ze clackediclack is produced by my teez.
Zai jian!
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