As I am contemplating my 93rd birthday this coming Christmas Eve,
my thoughts are, of course, on life with all its mysteries, and
on death with some mysteries of its own. As has been said,
"If we knew all about anything, we would know all about everything".
I am still alive, but not as "alive" as I once was, and I realize
that this process has been gradual and inexorable. As I approach
death, I ask questions concerning when I was most alive, and I have
reason to think it was just following
that
lucky sperm being allowed into that lucky egg.
The speed of division and specialization was never so great again.
I am very aware that my cell replication and repair processes
are still slowing, and that this can only result in something vital
not happening, or not happening correctly enough. Then I will,
for the record, die, although many of my tissues will be sufficiently
alive to be usable by a lucky, compatible, somebody. This is a
fascinating thought, that parts of me might "live" after I have
died.
Taken all together, though, I would choose to stay here &mdash
in one piece and in good shape, of course &mdash indefinitely
longer. I would not object to being the oldest human on the planet
by a hundred years or so. Or would I? Some things,
like sex and good food, might lose their sensory appeal altogether.
In any case, this is not my decision to make. We cannot reverse,
or even alter, the
arrow of time.
Tissues will repair more slowly and less perfectly, and eventually
some tissue we need will fail entirely. As we slow, we prepare
to die, and then we do.
