THE CASHWORD FOR DEC. 14, 2023

              GETTING OLDER

                                                By Cash Michaels

It’s the one thing I live with every day of my natural life. The one thing I can’t stop, but can improve upon. The one thing I can’t hide very well, though there are days when I wish I could.

It’s the one thing that defines, and constantly redefines me in these waning days of my life.

Getting older.

The mental, emotional and physical changes I go through every day simply astound me.

In less than a month, I will be 67 years old. I can’t say enough about how much that amazes me. I’ve officially been an “old man” ( the “grits-n-gravy” way of saying “retirement  age”) for at least two years.

Yes, I’m semi-retired from journalism (though I currently write for five African-American newspapers across the state). Because of a double amputation to both feet, and constant pain in my spine, I’m unable to walk properly.

Add to that my high blood pressure, diabetes, heart condition, failing eyesight and hearing, and any number of other testaments to my poor health history that I won’t list here, and one could accurately call me what older folks affectionately call a “basket case.”

And yet, through it all, because of my love of GOD, family and friends, I continue on because I have a mission. And until Almighty GOD says otherwise, I plan to accomplish that mission - to see my youngest of two daughters walk across the graduation stage of Yale University in the spring of 2025.

She’s currently a junior there, and doing very well, so she’s doing her part. 

And my oldest daughter wants to be an attorney, and a mother. 

So my job is, GOD willing, to complete my mission of being here for my children for as long as I can, and get older with strength, clarity and determination in the process.

Because the way I see it, getting older is what it is.

There’s no changing it or wishing it away. I can remember just a few short years ago right before the pandemic, when I was getting up early every weekday to take my youngest to school, and then hit the gym with vigor. I had a mission then too, and, by the grace of GOD, my wife and I completed it by getting our youngest off to college before COVID shut everything down, and I found myself adrift.

Sure I can look back and wish that my routine had never been broken, but as I said, it is what it is.

Today I experience life differently, not taking much for granted, watching my two girls continue to grow, and my devoted wife become even more loving (I write this on her 65th birthday). I keep a sharp eye on the news, not only because it has been my career, but because I’m concerned about what this world is turning into with my family in it.

I’m also concerned about my community, because having lived through the civil rights movement and the Black Lives Matter movement, it frightens me to see the social justice clock literally being turned backwards by forces who have proven to be no friends of me or mine.

But every day, getting older means paying closer attention to the things in life I value most, and as my body continues to fail, challenging my mind and heart to stay as sharp as ever so that some part of me remains attuned to what the future, no matter how brief, holds for me.

And finally, getting older means hoping that all of our young people are properly prepared to take this world over, and not make the same mistakes we have made. If they do, I pray that they learn from those mistakes, so they can do a better job of avoiding the extraordinary social catastrophes we old folks have gotten ourselves into.

Getting older, in the final analysis, means getting closer to my GOD, my Father, and doing the things that He would have me do, with the tools that He’s given me to do them.

I learn something new every day as I get older, but I’m thankful for everything I do learn, and every day I’m given to learn those things.

Once a young man, now an old one, getting older everyday.

It’s an adventure of a lifetime…no matter how much of it is left to cherish.

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