Noel Thomas

Yesterday we went visiting across the river, mostly so that Charlie could say ‘hello’ to old friends he wouldn’t otherwise see on this visit – and vice-versa. It came as something of a shock to us all that, even though our long-time friends Pat and Noel have lived in Astoria for almost fifteen years, Charlie had never been in their ‘new’ house there. And, of course, he had never met Alice.

And, it came as an even greater shock (in a way) that today would be Noel’s eightieth birthday. “Really? Eighty?! I always forget that you are so old,” I laughed.

“Old? What are you talking about? You’re right behind me,” he countered. And we both laughed.

I think I was the only one in the room who really understood where the almost-birthday-boy meant when he said, “I think I’m just going to start telling people I’m ninety.”

“Why?” asked the ever-practical Pat. “People can’t believe how old you are now. Why add a decade?”

Pat, Noel, and Alice

But I understood exactly what he was talking about. Even though I’ll be ‘only’ seventy-nine next February, I’ve been thinking of myself as eighty for some time. It’s not that I feel eighty. And it’s not that I want people to think of me as eighty. It has much more to do with the unbelievable fact, at least to me, that I’m as old as I am. Undoubtedly, it also has to do with hope. Hope that I’ll continue to feel as well as I do now when I am eighty. Hope that I can avoid the calcified attitudes of many eighty-year-olds I’ve known. Hope that I’m still in my right mind and enjoying life by then.

Yes, I can understand perfectly Noel’s thought. It has naught to do with what other people think ‘nor does it have to do with providing an excuse to begin acting old. It has everything to do with celebrating who we have become and who we hope to continue being. Happy 90^th Birthday, Noel! I’m still right behind you!