Aging Gracelessly
Live Hard and Leave a Good-Looking Corpse
Mrs. Nell made me this mirror out of some garbage
she found in an old fallen-down house.
I once had a friend and patient named Mrs. Nell. She was an elderly woman who lived alone and spent her free time building things in her workshop. In my experience, that’s kind of rare. Most of the serious carpenters I have known were guys.
Mrs. Nell was good at what she did. I have a mirror hanging in my bedroom that she made from repurposed lumber harvested from an old ramshackle building. That woman knew her way around a table saw.
A gifted woodworker can do some of the most amazing things
with these simple woodworking tools. However, they will tear
you up in the absence of close attention.
Notoriously Unforgiving of Inattention
The reason I knew Mrs. Nell so well was that I sewed her hands up, like a lot. To my recollection, I reassembled her fingers at least four times after she got mixed up with her power tools. She was a stoic lass who never complained. I’d just get the lay of the land, numb her up, and enjoy some spirited conversation while I put all the shredded meat back where God had it in the first place.
Eventually, her family grew weary of bringing her to the clinic to have me put her fingers back together. Women who live alone and are master carpenters are, in my experience, predictably headstrong. Mrs. Nell did not heed advice from well-meaning family members. They thought if they enlisted my assistance perhaps, I could talk some sense into her. Once she was well into her eighties, they asked me to tell her to stay out of her workshop. I politely declined to do so.
Once they left, and it was just the two of us, I told Mrs. Nell to do whatever she felt comfortable and capable of doing. So long as it didn’t hurt anyone else, I saw no harm in her working in her shop right up until Jesus called her home. It wasn’t like I needed the business or wanted to see her hurt herself. Quite the contrary, compared to most of her peers, Mrs. Nell was one of the most self-actualized, satisfied and happy senior citizens I knew. She had the option of aging gracefully. She simply made a conscious choice not to do so.
Imponderables
Mrs. Nell is gone now. And no, she didn’t trip and fall face-first into her router. Like most folks, she died of natural causes. However, she was active and created things right up until the end, which kept her mind sharp and her spirit even sharper. She built stuff and then gave it away to the people she loved. That’s where I got my mirror. Along the way, she also inspired me.
I am going to be the most horrible, old, demented man. I have already apologized to my children in advance. When the time comes for them to relieve me of my car keys or change the locks on the hangar where I keep my little fighter plane, I guarantee you I will not go easy into that good night.
I tell people that my life goal is to meet Jesus at the bottom of a smoking hole with the tail of an airplane between my shoulder blades at around age ninety. I mean that as a joke, but not really. I have little interest in whiling away the last decade of my life in a puddle of drool, unable to remember the names of those who love me. To quote the Kurgan from the epic 1986 movie Highlander, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away!”
Introspection
I’m 57 years old and am a man mightily blessed. I have a family that loves me, and I get paid to shoot guns and then tell the IRS it’s actually work. I honestly don’t know why God is so good to me. I also have no idea what the final chapter of my life’s story will look like. I like to think I’ll go out having caught a bullet intended for my wife or something comparably awesome. Alas, I’ll likely trip over my weed eater and break my neck or choke to death on a grape. Regardless, it’s already been a great run.
In addition to being a simply superb woodworker, Mrs. Nell was also both kind and wise. She’s been gone for years now, but I think she still has a great deal to teach us even today. Treat others as you might like to be treated and live life on your own terms. Find something you love and strive daily to remain productive. Bless others with the talents and resources God has given you.
Where someone else might see a pile of discarded garbage from a demolished house, Mrs. Nell saw potential. She could take rubbish back to her workshop and turn it into something beautiful, useful and cool. If your fingers get a bit banged up in the process, that’s honestly a pretty small price to pay for a long, richly lived life.
