What If Getting Older Doesn’t Have to Look Like This?

“Good morning. My name is John… and we’re from the funeral home.”

I still remember hearing those words.

Two men in dark suits pushed a stretcher down the hallway and into the back bedroom.

My grandfather had been in a coma for days.

Then early that morning, he was gone.

Before he got sick, my grandfather owned Shur-Strike Bait in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

He sold fishing tackle to small mom-and-pop stores along the North Carolina coast.

Lures.

Rods and reels.

Hooks, lines, cane poles, and bobbers.

He always wore a suit and tie.

Usually a felt hat that matched.

Every Monday morning, he would leave home and travel all week before coming back Friday night.

Tom and Mary Smith
Rocky Mount, NC

Then he got lung cancer.

He was a smoker.

A lot of people smoked back then.

Once the chemo treatments started, he went downhill fast.

He did not want to die in a hospital room.

So his family brought him home.

He spent the last several months of his life there.

I was in college at the time.

I would drive an hour to help my mom take care of him.

Some days, he was too weak to stand on his own.

I would help hold him up while he used the bathroom.

As time went on, he got so weak he could no longer get out of bed.

I would put on blue gloves and hold a plastic urinal for him while he laid there in bed.

The first time I realized how sick he really was, he was wearing a house robe.

I had never seen him dressed like that before.

I had always seen him wearing a suit and tie.

And I remember thinking something very clearly.

“I don’t want to end up like this.”

Not because of him.

Because of what I was seeing.

How quickly life can change.

How fast a person can become weak.

I watched as they carried him out of his home.

Quietly.

Then he was gone.

Years later, I still think about that morning sometimes.

Most people don’t think about this until they have to.

Many assume getting older means getting weaker.

Slower.

Sicker.

But maybe that’s not the only path.

Maybe small decisions now affect what later looks like.

That’s something I started thinking about a long time ago.