About Age and Death

This Friday, I took a half day to visit my grandparents at the senior home.

Grandpa is much shorter and weaker than I remember. His hair isn’t as clean and short as it used to be, rather sticking out on some sides.

His stern face is gone. He smiles more. I don’t remember many times that he smiled.

My grandma is still a young woman at heart. She feels sad that her hands have become wrinkled and dry.

She looks at my grandpa and her eyes are full of worry.

She has cut her hair short. She has never done that her whole life. All her life, her hair had been in curls, making her head look more volumized than it actually is.

Aging is a natural phenomenon that many people have a hard time accepting.

Every time a hair turns grey or a bone starts to ache, we notice that these are the tolls of old age.

I fear growing old now that I have seen the things it does.

Perhaps even more than death itself.