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Falling Down the Stairs

By David Haldane

Jan. 27, 2025

 

Seventy-six.

That’s how old I am as of last week. It’s a staggering number. And yet I feel like I’m just getting started. Perhaps that’s the twisted irony of aging.

My birthday began with a not-so-subtle reminder of mortality. As a subscriber to Google Alerts, I receive occasional emails letting me know whenever my name pops up on the internet. Usually, it’s a notification that this column has been published, or someone somewhere is using my name in vain.

Two days before my special day, however, I got one even more alarming than usual: that my obit had appeared on Legacy.com. Oh God, I thought, have I died and don’t even know it? Fortunately for me, the dead David Haldane turned out to be another guy with my name who departed the earth near Edinburgh, Scotland, back in 2009. Whew, I sighed, that was close!

But my travails were not yet over. Just hours later, I learned that a long-time friend on Facebook had recently died. And hours after that, received another email from an old high school chum. His news: that a girl we both dated at 16 had, in fact, met her maker because of cancer. “I don’t normally get depressed about stuff,” Bruce said, “but [this] slammed me. I guess I was hoping to meet and talk to her one of these days.”

Then he lamented the fact that so many of his long-lost friends keep dying just before he gets around to looking them up for reunions. “Ouch,” my old friend said. “Please, David, don’t die!”

And yet the worst was yet to come. It happened the very next day when my much-younger wife and I took a walk. As we started down our steep driveway, all seemed well; the setting sun threw a shimmering orange gleam on the rain-soaked pavement. Then I lost my balance and fell crashing to the ground.

Lying painfully prone, with no idea of how to get back up, was humiliating enough. But my wife’s obvious alarm set all the red lights flashing. “Oh my God!” she practically wailed, “are you alright? Should I take you to the hospital? Do you need an x-ray?”

Fortunately, my only injury was a huge black bruise on the butt that has yet to fade. But her reaction made me realize just how vulnerable I really am. And reminded me again of my secret fear: that one of these days, indeed, I will trip over my own feet and die.

All of which reminds me of a recent post I saw on Facebook. “Is 76 considered old?” it asked rhetorically. “I think so in my case. I turned 76 in August and, in comparison with 75, I now feel positively decrepit.”

Oh great, I thought, more good news.

Then came the morning of my birthday when, in grand Filipino style, I was awakened by the sounds of a family chorus singing outside my bedroom door. When it was over, they handed me a gorgeous bouquet of roses. And exhorted me to dance with my wife; an old shirtless man in pajamas trying awkwardly to keep up with his beautiful sure-footed partner. The experience was so lovely that I didn’t even mind the video they posted on Facebook, much to the delight of my chortling friends.

Which brings us to the point of this little shuffle down memory lane; the relief of living in a culture that celebrates rather than bemoans growing old. One that respects the ravages of age as the well-earned scars of wisdom. And that venerates its elders as revered individuals worthy of affectionate respect.

I sometimes joke that my daughter is so young that I must live at least 20 more years to walk her down the aisle, even if it means her pushing me down that aisle in a wheelchair. Dancing with my wife the other day, I wanted to add several extra decades.

 

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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist and author with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao. His latest book, Dark Skies, is due out in May and can be pre-ordered here. This column appears weekly in The Manila Times.

 

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