The Middle Years

“Curmudge, it doesn’t look as if we’re going to talk about Lean.”

“Right, Jaded Julie. We are going to talk about health, especially in one’s middle years.”

“Do you mean middle age? It’s been many years since you were that young.”

“No. I mean the years between when one is in his/her 70’s or 80’s and death. To a younger person, good health is almost assured, but for those in these middle years, poor health at some point is almost inevitable. Here is an example. A group of us senior citizens gets together every Independence Day. On average, one group member dies every year. The wife of one of the men is his third; one widow has buried two husbands, and both members of another couple are deceased.”

“Thanks, Curmudge, for cheering me up. I assume the multiple spouses you mentioned were successive and not concurrent.”

“Let’s look more specifically at the health of older couples. When both spouses are healthy, they are able to do the normal retired-couple things, like traveling, attending concerts, serving as volunteers, or even working part time. But when just one member of the couple becomes ill, everything comes to a halt. The healthy person often becomes the caregiver for the one in poor health.”

“Although it’s obvious, I never thought of it that way. I always felt that as long as I am in good health, I’ll be able to do all the things I want to do. But in reality, what I can do depends on the good health of both my husband and me. It’s sort of like ‘a chain is as strong as its weakest link.’ In marriage, it’s a two-link chain.”

“Here, Julie, are some extreme examples among our acquaintances. A middle-aged woman suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident; her husband was her caregiver for the next 20 years. A couple in their 60’s drowned together when their tour bus ran off a mountain road in Switzerland and into a lake. As you see, the caregiver’s role can last from zero in the case of simultaneous deaths to many years, with all sorts of durations in between. I was a caregiver for only a week but was willing to go on for much longer. In all cases the ending is sad, but in some instances it is a blessing and in others it is tragic.”

“Curmudge, all I can do is shudder. So what’s our lesson?”

“It’s pretty simple. Do the things you want to do in life while you are young, i.e., younger than 70. Take care of your health, stay safe, and be lucky. And also, choose a spouse who appears healthy. As our family doctor—a horserace enthusiast—used to say, ‘pick a lean horse for a long race.’”

“But it doesn’t always work that way, Curmudge. As you know so well, your originally-lean spouse’s race was much too short.”

Affinity’s Kaizen Curmudgeon