The Game of Aging.

Aging spelled backwards is Ginga. Ginga is a funny word, but there is nothing funny about aging. In fact the game of aging is much like the game Jenga, a table game that consists of many rectangular blocks. Generally played with two players, you can also go it alone. The object of the game is to stack as many blocks as you can without allowing the stack to topple over. As you place the blocks in the tower you do so with such precision, not allowing yourself to touch the other blocks lest the entire tower falls. When you become aged, you think back about all the blocks that you placed in a tower to keep your tower from falling over, and ending the game. You spend your entire life deciding where to place the blocks in your life so the result will be a stable structure. Sometimes it takes a while to decide where to place the next block, or in what order to place the block. As you get older, and your tower gets taller, you pride yourself on having gone so far without a mishap. Then all of a sudden one day you aim to place that last block, it hits another one, and your tower is in shambles. What has happened? All of a sudden you have reached the age where you are aged, aging, or elderly. All of the blocks that had been so precisely placed, are in a heap. It is hard to determine if the tower began to fall from the top or the bottom. At this point, you need to depend on someone to take your hand, and lead you through the pile of wooden blocks, and guide you so you will not fall. That someone is not there to help rebuild your tower, because it is too late, but to help you make sense of what made you what you once were. Fortunately, there are people who devote their lives to helping you make sense of what has happened, and what is happening. Part of the tower construction will remain with you forever, but parts will be lost forever, and that is the part that is difficult to deal with. Life is pretty much a game anyway, sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose, but as long as we have CAREGIVERS, people who really CARE, and GIVE what they can to help us pick up the pieces, and make life more comfortable, this should give us comfort. And whether we wish to accept the fact or not, the fact remains that our towers will collapse. And there is comfort in knowing that you do not have to build another tower, why not settle for a sandbox, and do not give up hope. Every day an elderly man passes by our house pushing his rollator (the fancy walker with a seat). He will park the rollator for about 10 minutes, rest on the seat, and then continue to proceed slowly up the hill pushing the rollator. There is comfort in knowing that aging people do not give up.