I remember my mother struggling up from the couch once at an age very near to my own. As she grunted up from her supine position she said to me, “Don’t get old, Gerry.”
I lay on the floor watching television. I turned my head to the side and back and smiled. I don’t intend to I said to myself. “I’ll try not to,” I said to her.
Well, so much for that bit of facetious immortal adolescent wisdom. Now I have my own aches and pains, aches and pains I swore I would never have, and which I still believe I am too young to experience. My mother no doubt felt the same way.
Each stab of pain in the shoulder, the back, the neck, the teeth sadly reaffirms the unmistakable reality that I am not now, and I must admit, never was, immortal. And this is not a bad thing.
I would not want to be immortal.
Think about Vampires. They are universally thought of as evil, bloodsucking demons that prowl the night. Granted, they do suck blood, but the whole evil thing must have really come about because, after two hundred, three hundred, or a thousand years, what other choice do you have? I mean how many millions of dollars can you accrue before you lose interest in buying anything with those millions? How many wars and famines can you experience before you start to lose your grip on reality? How many people can you watch drop away from you like so many flies caught under a swatter before you wonder if your own life is lacking some essential element?
No, immortality might be good for some, but not for me. I’ll just put in my eighty or ninety and retire. Maybe I’ll even get a gold watch, who knows. Although by then my arms will probably be so thin the watch will slip up to my artificial shoulder.
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