I woke up with a line from a poem: “Old age is center stage.” In a few days, I’ll be 87 years old, so this line was hardly “news.” As much as I am aware of old age and deal with it in various ways daily, nay, hourly, is more accurate, what is it I need reminding of by this line from sleep? My first thought was that this was a poem, but my memory only has a single line. So, I will work on a poem. The second thing that occurred to me was the memory of a foreword I wrote for a book on aging. For now, I’ll include that here, for it says many things that are coming to mind under the weight of this line from sleep. I’ll post it here as a Saturday Memory.

Old age is an opportunity to experience our own deepest mystery. Life’s distractions preclude tending to this mystery before the prospect of death begins to close all the curtains to the outside world. Mystery literally means “seeing with the eyes closed.” We do this when we sleep, and then we see dreams. Dreams, like our DNA, are unique to us. Truth be known, our dreams are an invitation to explore our uniqueness and become an extraordinary resource for us as we confront the reality and inevitability of death. We do know that every dream is a story—a mystery—but most people have little or no connection to this reality. This is why it is important for something or someone to point us in the direction of our own unique path—a direction that becomes crucial as death approaches. We don’t need instruction. We don’t need lectures. We don’t need admonitions or dogma. What we need are stories that strike us to the core, stories that can open us up to the most important pathway we will ever experience. What can help is to hear stories of someone who has struggled with the same things we struggle with in old age and as death begins to call our name. An exquisite example is Lilly Iona MacKensie’s book, Dreaming Myself into Old Age: One Woman’s Search for Meaning. What I find most compelling about this work is she speaks not with an impersonal, distant voice, but with full-throated revelations of her personal struggles, an inside view that invites connection, that opens one up to her stories, her dreams, and her art in such a way that it becomes a genuine companion to one’s own struggles with old age, dying, and death. Read this book now. You will be glad you did.

Russell A. Lockhart, Ph.D.

Author of The Final Interlude: Advancing Age and Life’s End, Psyche Speaks, Words As Eggs