Imagine, a Caribbean island. It’s late, a few minutes before midnight. It’s dark. The sea is close by and I can hear the waves pounding the stones in the Bay. I’m sitting on a lounge chair in the veranda. El Dorado rum with ice in one glass, and soursop ice cream in another. I am watching the full moon, over the sea, shimmering lights on the water. The moonlight is so bright that it has obscured the myriads of stars seen earlier. Practically everyone has gone to sleep it seems, except me. So I can also hear quite clearly the music of the night insects. Occasionally a car speeds by, dangerously, and drowns all other sounds out for a few minutes.
Today was my birthday – far away from my other home, some family and friends. Determined to be positive, this morning I started writing down things I am/should be grateful for in my life. By the time I’ve reached number 35, it’s becoming repetitive. I’m tempted to skip and write “I’m grateful for everything”, but decided that would be cheating and not a good way to start another decade, so I keep going throughout the day, jotting down things as they occur. Some things I am doubly grateful for – my sons, my family, my friends, health, work - so I repeat.
But things are not as bright and idyllic as it seems. I reflect. I’m in the house spot where I was born and like to think the moon was shining as bright that night so many years ago. I’ve been given a new mobile phone as a present (something unimaginable 70 years ago) and ask my mother to take a Selfie with me, she refuses. I ask her whether I was born in the day or night, she looks at me askance, quizzical, doesn’t answer. She thinks/says “I am a waste of space”. She’s 90 and lately I’ve been asking too many questions. She was 20, when she gave birth to me, already had two small children and taking care of my dad’s grandmother. I feel that there isn’t much time to get answers.
My dad is 94, and presently downstairs in a sick bed having recently survived Covid, pneumonia, and all the respiratory problems associated with the virus. Now, when God grants it, he will die of old age in his own bed, surrounded by family and not alone in a hospital bed, far away. He gives me strength!
Perhaps because I work with people in later life, and value their wisdom, humour, resilience in adversity, I believe ageing is not to be denied. In exceptional circumstances we contemplate on the alternative. I will do my best to be healthy, but experience tells me that some health issues are beyond our control. In his now raspy voice, my father is still able to say “morning, morning” and smiles when I give him ice cream instead of mush.
So, I’ll sit here and watch, and fall asleep under the moon as it disappears into the sea to another land, or as has just happened, obscured by a huge rain cloud. I can see the stars again. Soon cockerels will start crowing loudly - echoing each other, the sun will rise and another day will begin – someone else’s birthday. The waves will continue lashing the land, each day taking back a little. 70 years is less than a grain of sand in the scheme of things, but I’m grateful to have been part of it, content with what I have, and hope for many more moonlit nights.