Dear Editor,
Last Tuesday, Aug. 12, my husband was having day surgery at Wexham Park Hospital in the United Kingdom. I went to have a coffee and I had the good fortune to meet up with two ladies whose names, sadly, I did not ask for, but I know that they live in Langley.
We spent an hour or more talking about many things and laughing together. We decided that we didn’t much like being bracketed as “the elderly.†This is probably why we had such a fun-filled time and shared so many common experiences.
I would like them to know how much I appreciated their company. I felt I’d known them all my life, and am deeply grateful to them both.
I saw them again just as they were leaving and I was sitting reading my Kindle whilst waiting for my husband. I would so like them to know how much I enjoyed and appreciated their company. If they ever felt like it, I’d love to meet them again.
Having so much fun as we grow older, and whilst sometimes others think that our brains have gone the way of our bodies, puts me in mind if this extract from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear;
Not Oedipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode,
Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode
Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn,
But other something, would we but begin;
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away, the sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
Ann Robertson, via email