Every year, there’s an excitement that takes place at the end of October. As the month wraps up, stores are decked with ghoulish decor, fake cobwebs, bright orange pumpkins and spooky costumes often displayed right at the entrance. Kids prepare a checklist of homes for trick or treat and adults get ready with fancy costumes, themed cocktails for an eerie night of fun.
Just right after, Christians mark the remembrance of departed loved ones on All Souls Day. Talk about an abrupt shift from the playful festivities to a solemn day honoring the souls of those who went ahead of us.
While the former can be used to present a playful take on death, the latter is a grim reminder that we all ultimately face mortality. Though the hour remains unknown, our earthly journey’s end is etched in stone.
We strive to maintain healthy lives. We feed our bodies with nutritional food, introduce gluten-free, plant-based, antioxidant-packed superfoods, and other healthy-sounding terminologies, all in the hopes of convincing our bodies to stick around a little longer. We drag ourselves to the gym, endure burpees, deadlifts and other rigorous exercises, as much as our bodies can handle, in hopes to stay and look fit.
Being told that a minute of sun exposite will instantly age us ten years, we wrap ourselves with SPF 100 like a suit of armor. On our fancy aqua-something bottles, we down green smoothies that taste like lawn clippings because they’re supposed to make us immortal. We need sufficient amount of sleep each night, but we don’t go to bed until we carwfully layer serums, creams and oils to keep our skin alive and thriving.
All these rituals to maintain top health condition, ageless appearance, and keep insanity at bay the next time we take a closer look at the mirror.
And indeed, we have statistics to support this progress. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the median age at death has increased by 11.5 years for males (to 79.6) and by 10.9 years for females (to 84.9) over a period from 1964 to 2021. We are expected to enjoy our retirement years longer than our ancestors that age care. For instance, retirement living will face a housing crisis amid unprecedented demand and occupants staying longer.
Ah, aging! One minute from our teenage years we watch our favorite TV screen idols sing “Forever Young”. Then a couple of decades later, they make a cameo return for commercials on anti-aging creams. It’s a completely sobering realization that yes, if they got old, so did we! Those hearthrobs whose posters we kept in our rooms in high school are now sporting wrinkles, thinning hairline and maybe a hint of dad bod. It’s possible that our inherent denial of us getting old that we coined expressions such as “life begins at 40” or “50 is the new 40”. We are now left to make a simple deduction:
“Wait, if they’re old, then… oh no.”
And sport stars! The ones whose names occupy sports headlines in bold letters after dominating the courts, fields and stadiums, and for once we thought were forever invincible. Tom Brady won seven Super Bowls and played until age 45. Roger Federer achieved 20 Grand Slam titles and over 1,200 career wins. Usain Bolt won eight Olympic gold medals and rewrote sprint record books.
Inspite of their stellar careers, each of them had to call it a day. They hug the headlines one more time as they announce their retirement, ushering an end to an era, as if their peak was only yesterday. Meanwhile, here we are, struggling to accept that we are not as agile as we used to be — and treat bending down to tie our shoes as if it’s a small workout.
They say the older we are, the wiser we become. Indeed aging is not just a pathway towards death, but a valuable teacher that offers lessons on purpose and true meaning of life.
As we age, such behaviors introduced above are part of our emotional response to these changes.
Hearing a familiar melody takes us back in time. We’re not just listening to the music, we also remember old friends, girls we fell in love with, and embarassing moments that make us chuckle. It’s a bittersweet realization that while we find comfort hearing it again, it’s also a nostalgic longing for the past that is out of our reach.
Walking into a reunion in our grade school can feel surreal. Everyone has changed, but somehow stayed the same. Some have grown beard, others have receeding hair, and many have gained weight, but their peculiar movements and voices remain undeniably the same. It’s like we were transported back in a time machine, but also feels we never the present moment. The landscape may have changed; we thought the campus shrunk and not as big as we remember them. There’s joy in reconnecting as we regurgitate old jokes, re-enact certain scenes and hear revelations that seem like a lost piece of the puzzle completes a story. For example, I now realize I am not always the good boy I thought I was; I am also menacingly involved in making fun of others in the campus.
But I am glad I can still atone for those mistakes. Others are not as fortunate. They are the ones who departed before us, but nonetheless left memories highlighted in gatherings like this. Even though the mood is joyous and full of smiles, there’s an unspoken weight of loss. It’s humbling to realize that while some of us have aged, there are those who never got the chance.
When we look around and recognize that we are actually lucky to witness or experience life’s milestones. Once we were scared to reveal our age for cultural, security or whatever reasons, we notice shifts in our mindset. Turning 40, 50 or 60 no longer feels like something to fear or deny. It’s both a personal accomplishment and a gift from God.
When we were in the peak of our youth, we were restless, ambitious and has the world’s opportunities ahead of us. We want to climb the corporate ladder, we want to explore distant lands, we want to reach our goals and fulfill our dreams. Our idealism is strong, motivating us to take risks and achieve what life’s best can offer to us. As teens we might imagine getting married at 25, own a house at 30 and a steady career in our chosen profession. We firmly believe hard work and determination are keys to success.
But as time passes, we find ourselves settling into a different world. We find ourselves still jobless at 25, living with parents at 30 and unable to embrace the vocation of married life. It’s a time when we start looking back as often as we look forward. The strong drive to conquer and achieve is tempered by the urge to tone down. We become more conscious to understand, reflect and appreciate. It’s a time we realize that not all life’s goals are achievable, and that’s okay. The ideals of our youth gradually gives way to a nuanced understanding that life is not about ticking all the bucket lists we built, but learning to accept, adapt and appreciate the path we are currently in.
As we age, we start letting go of the concept of constant accomplishment and replace it with contentment. While we live in an era that embraces validation such as social media likes, we no longer seek validation in our successes and accolades we receive. We become more focused on relationships we nurtured, the memories we made, and the person we’ve become as a product of the environment and people surrounding us.
Moving from Davao to Manila to Hong Kong to Sydney, I realize it’s much more than change in scenery and securing a career. It was an invitation to grow, and experience life from different angles, meeting people who have influenced my life.
With each move, there’s a mixture of both excitement and uncertainty, a chance to start fresh but also letting go of things that are hard to let go. The people we meet along the way — friends, mentors, colleagues, neighbors — each play a part in shaping us. They taught us lessons not only about themselves but also ourselves tha we could never have learned alone. Some of them may stay with for life, others a mere passing acquaintance once the lessons are learned, but all contribute to our story in their own unique way.
Looking back, it’s God’s perfect planning that each place, each person, and each experience was exactly what we needed at that point in our journey. Every move and every relationship pieced together who we are now. What seemed like an ordinary friendship or a temporary home to stay have contributed varying degrees of impact in us.
Thus, as we age, and Father Time catching up to us, there’s an immense gratitude for the journey and the people who walked with us at specific moments.
The topic of aging and death may sound absurd or even a taboo, and rightly so. It carries a reminder that time is fleeting and our days are numbered. It’s natural to feel daunted by the inevitability of both — who wants to thing about growing older, or an even more unsettling topic of death? We don’t want to die now, but we should not be afraid of death. Amidst the tension of this reality lies a gift: death urges us to live with purpose and intention.
Aging brings physical changes, such as aching knees, greying hair or wrinkles on our foreheads. But it also brings perspective in our consciousness. As we accumulate years, we learn to distinguish between what truly matters and what once seemed so important to us. We don’t know when is our time, and that should bring us a sense of urgency. It should drive us to assess our life choices. In knowing that our time is finite, we are given the gift of living more fully and meaningfully.
Have we forgiven those who hurt us or have we sought reconciliation to people we offended? Have we kept waiting for the perfect time to live life with focused intention or already immersed in it now? Do we nurture relationships and lived our life with contentment, while aspiring to be better? If we don’t start now, there may not be enough time left. Today is a blessing, but tomorrow is not a guarantee.