Living in a World that's Fading

Sitting here, I’m finding there is much to learn from the corner of a cardiologist’s lobby.

A woman passes by, pressing her cane to the floor for support and I look away before she sees my searching eyes. The heavy door is too much for her and a little boy runs to rescue. It’s almost too much for him but he manages, with his full weight leaning, to provide a space for her to pass. 

She passes slowly through and he sits down across from me and begins to watch the lobby life as well.

Our attention is caught by an old veteran, shuffling along inches at a time. I wonder what the little boy thinks of this – the sad sight of glory faded. Can he understand this story of sad decay he’s seeing?

No. He hasn’t likely been taught to see past the veteran’s outer limping shell. He will not understand until much later, when he feels the glory fading in his strong legs and he’s the one pushing a walker, what it means to have life slip through your fingers.

The veteran passes back in front of me a few minutes later, but the boy has just left.  He wasn’t given another chance to see and understand as I was.

This time, I notice the veteran’s back, shoulders, and neck.  Unlike his surrendering legs, they stand straight and proud; soldiers refusing to give up the fight.  The shuffling feet make slow, hollow thuds, but they march on.  He marches on.

Two grey-haired men pass by a little to my left.  One asks the other about his weight.

 “About 40 pounds”, he says.  “I finally just started doing what I should have all along”. They both laugh – understanding.

“Well, it’s very noticeable” says the other, and congratulates him. They both smile and part ways.  Both have a twinkle in their eyes and I realize there is joy in acknowledging the reverse of decay.  Every small battle won is worth celebrating.

A woman wearing a bright green shirt and flowing skirt walks to the restroom and pushes open the door. She nearly collides with another woman coming out and they laugh, apologize in unison, and shuffle quickly past.  I see the second woman adjust her blouse a few seconds later, smoothing out the wrinkles.

I think to myself that some wrinkles are easier to smooth than others.

A man three chairs to my right gets up and walks slowly away.  He can’t be over 55. I wonder if he ever expected to be using a cane before he turned 60.

A nurse comes out and calls for a woman named Betty.  

“I’m here”.  I turn to see a well dressed woman in her 60’s. I don’t hear the nurse’s question, but I hear Betty tell her with a smile, “I’m doing better than I look”. She smiles and thanks the nurse for holding open the door.

Her words remind me of something I’ve begun to believe after living with my grandparents for nearly a month now: we all stay the same age on the inside.  Looks can be deceiving and our outsides will fade, but our hearts and minds will always wish to remain the same.  Young and beautiful.

That’s why 40^th birthdays are more often a time of mourning than excitement. And why my friends in their older twenties have started saying, “I feel so old!” – an exclamation of shock rather than joy. And it’s why Peter Pan’s Neverland is a dream world where no one ever grows up and America’s plastic surgeons raked in over $10 billion in 2011[1].

We just don’t want to get old.  We’d just as soon our bodies never decayed or sagged or suddenly stopped working like they used to. Because deep down we know something we can’t quite put out finger on: 

We are made to last.

Our bodies were not made to break down.  Our hair was not meant to fall out. And our fingers were not supposed to ache and twist with arthritis.

But things don’t quite work like they’re supposed to down here on planet earth.  We long ago invited decay to live here with us and it’s gotten its way into anything and everything it can get its hands on.  And too late we’re realizing that decay isn’t a neighbor we want to have around anymore.

But it’s too late to get rid of decay.  As long as we’re still living here, we must bear with it and learn to live in a dying world that endlessly fights against our deepest desires for life.

So our bodies break down and slowly we return to the dust we came from - all along knowing that this just can’t be the way things were supposed to be.  We fight like hell to keep decay from coming any closer and we lose 40 pounds and wait to see a heart doctor and pay someone an incredible chunk of our life’s savings to smooth out the wrinkles from our faces.  But even in our shining moments, we know that we’re fighting a losing battle and one thing we are guaranteed in life is that it is slowly fading away.

Then there are those veterans of life who have fought hard and lived well and rather than run away from the decay that is looming, they look death right in its ugly face. And despite the fact that their strength is fading faster with each passing day, they continue on. 

Left, right, left.  Left, right, left. One step, then another. One step.  Then another. Because though life is fading, it is not yet gone and much still remains. And this decaying and fading will someday finally come to an end.  And we will finally be made new.

So we straighten our weary backs and hold our heads high.

And we march on.

"For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come."
Hebrews 13:14

"Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day."
2 Corinthians 4:16

"He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!'"

Revelation 21:5

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[1] Dicker, Ron. "Plastic Surgery Spending Is Up, As Number Of Chin Augmentations Surges." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 Apr. 2012. Web. 18 Sept. 2013.