Our VW Touareg is coming to the end of its days.  We have loved driving this car as it combines space with practicality and performance with comfort.  It’s been good to us. It’s taken us skiing in France, coasted through European highways in Germany, Holland, Belgium and toured throughout the  Italian regions of Puglia, Marche, Emilia Romagna and Toscana.   The Touareg evokes memories of my trusted Toyota Land-cruiser in Uganda.  This was a beast of a car which would take on the best of the mad Matatu drivers and come out of the exchange victorious.

Its bashes  were never repaired.   I liked the fact that they signified, “take me on at your peril”.   I drove it all over Uganda, through game-parks and, once, out of a life -threatening incident involving a hoard of marauding elephants.

But unlike the Land-Cruiser, which will continue to be patched up and repaired until the Ugandan mechanics have run out of magic, the Touareg, having done close to 110,000 miles, is slowly, creakily, edging into old car age.  And we are now facing a seemingly endless debate about our next family car, spending a fortune on car magazines and losing hours doing internet research.  Meanwhile the Touareg sits sadly outside, month by month developing new issues, creaks and problems – some which we ignore, others which require greater consideration. It awaits its fate, reproachfully silent.  Yet every morning, like a faithful old guard dog, it starts with its ignition key and roars into life.

And there are parallels with the book I’m reading – Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal.  I’m not finished it yet but feel compelled to share. Click here to read its review. I have already written about death and dying, which turn out to be almost the easy bits.  This book is all about how we think and prepare for old age. He  reminds us that it’s only in the last two hundred years, with the advent of better sanitation, research and medical intervention, that our life length expectations have increased.

Interestingly it’s the contrast of this expectation and the reality of life in East Africa that so drew me to the continent.  Living and working in Uganda and more broadly across the region, I learned the frailty and transcendence of life and the casual disregard many had of hanging on for grim death.  Living in Africa, you breathe differently. Its a hunger for breath, a joyous grasp for every drop of air, it makes you feel so ALIVE!   Every day, every night, every trip could be your last, particularly if outside of Kampala, driving in the dark, when locals believed that using headlights was burning fuel, so did without!   Once, driving out of Kampala in the musky light of pre-dawn, on my way to a 6am flight out of Entebbe, I followed a large lorry and a couple of cars,  over an unexpected hump in the road.  I recoiled when I saw a man’s head roll into the side of the reservation.   It was too dangerous for a single Muzungu woman to stop, so I had to carry on, badly shaken and with a heavier heart.

However, life and aging in the UK is different.  And from appreciating the daily comforts,  Gatwande  reminds me that  I need to consider how I prepare, monetarily and with research, for growing older.   I have every intention of not sitting in an armchair wearing a parachute; I want my old age to be full of adventure and excitement.  My dearest friend, Jill, sold her cottage in Wales and emigrated to a new life in Vancouver Island in her late 70’s.  She is one of my role models.  This is how I intend to be! Watch the best Exotic Marigold Hotel 1 and 2 movies and let me know if you’re interested in joining me…

So saying this, I know I need to consider growing older with an attitude of positivity, health and well-being.  There is an interesting article in Time magazine from a Doctor in 1959, who gave some good hints and tips.  These are still valid today.

And just think – how many of us know of someone, friend or relative, who passed away suddenly in their sleep?  And how many of these would you consider to be young? Compare this to those we know who have languorously, sadly, steadily approached older age due to sickness or illness.  Rarely is old age instantaneous.  It’s often an insidious, slow creep.  My father, some friends and acquaintances suffered dreadfully from cancer and similar diseases and as their life length expectations grow shorter, somehow they become younger!  Others, like Craig’s Mum, ease into decrepitude, with a twinge, a pain and a loss of some kind.  Gradually these increase and, just like what we are doing with the Touareg, they have to compensate and continue until the point where they have to accept, adapt, plan and change.

Craig’s Mother was a great one for denial.  For years she refused to tell anyone her real age and Roscoe made a point of teasing her about it from the day he found out. She used to keep reminding him it was their secret.  But she has been dying for the past 18 months, her lung capacity becoming gradually less and less until she could not move without her oxygen tank.  Day after day, the carers would wash and dress her before the task of moving  her and his Dad into their living room.  There they would sit, like bookends, passing their days, chatting away and watching TV.  This week, the Minister (what we Scots call the Vicar or Priest)  came in to help the family plan his Mother’s funeral.  I assumed it was something that John and May had talked through in their many hours in the living room, so that neither would put the onus of decision making on the other.   I asked Craig how the conversation had gone and mentioned it must have been easier for his Dad given they had so long to plan.  “Oh no” he replied.  “They never discussed it.  My Mum never thought she would die…”