by Victoria Moss

Created on: July 02, 2008   Last Updated: July 13, 2008

I come from a family where people do not grow old. Yes, they do become sick and die, but not of old age.

Old age, from the point of view of my family members, is a state in which others find themselves. We ourselves dodge it - simply by denial. Or so we think!

My father died at seventy-nine. He had suffered from a heart condition for several years and, along with various other warnings, his doctor told him to give up smoking. He retorted that he had absolutely no intention of putting away his beloved pipe, and to avoid upsetting my mother, he simply smoked out in the back garden behind the shed so that she did not have to see it.

He continued to live as he chose, and he certainly did not choose to live as an elderly man!

He worked energetically in his garden, argued vigorously about politics with anyone who would listen, attended protest meetings to block the addition of fluoride ("that poison!") to the town water supply, chained himself to a tree in the street in protest against its removal by council workers, disputed all of his doctor's attempts to place restrictions on his life, argued with my mother over the fat-free diet she inflicted on him and stashed cholesterol-loaded snacks and a wine cask in his garage to avoid deprivation. Fortunately, he did have the commonsense to take the prescribed medication for his heart complaint.

"Leave me to live my own life!" he warned. "I am going to live, not exist!" And live he did, making the most of each day!

We missed him terribly when he died, but it was good to remember just how joyfully and youthfully he had loved life and how peacefully he passed on when it was his time.

My mother lived by the same maxim. After my father's death when she was in her mid-seventies, she took driving lessons, gained her licence and bought herself a nifty little vehicle to replace the pushbike that she had been riding to the shops and on visits to ailing neighbours. The neighbours were mostly around her age but did not share her ageless state of mind. She would visit each in turn taking pots of soup, hot scones, posies of lavender or a jar of jam. Often she would bring back a basket of soiled laundry which she would proceed to wash, dry and iron before returning the basket with a bunch of freshly picked carrots or parsley from her garden.

When asked why she was burdening herself with such matters, she would reply, "Well, what else do the poor old things have?"

She continued to live in the large family house after my father's death. I heard

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