I identify as a grandfather

I saw it all.

I saw the once admired rotary telephone morph into a movie house, a concert hall, an art gallery, and a virtual borderless metropolis—all in one hand. I saw athletes dash faster than a Porsche. Of course, I can now speak to my American aunt in the comforts of my lounge chair, thousands of miles where she cooked their supper.

From a mere app, I can call on a six-seater black SUV and have the pilot drive me to my destination in style. I can edit photos to the size of a thumbnail from the same phone that can fit Godzilla on its screen.

Such progress amuses and amazes an old man like me. However, there’s the charger, the power bank, the external hard drive and flash drives, the headphones, and tons of wires to bring around just so all this would work. How comforting, indeed.

Younger, life was simple. A holiday was made up of cotton candies, a stroll at the Luneta, a banana split at the QUAD, an hour at the bump cars, and some dirty ice cream to cap the day.

Birthdays meant cakes, balloons, Magnolia treats, Butterballs, toy soldiers, Matchbox™, and marbles which seem to fence the Milky Way inside its round glass carapace. A rendezvous at a bookstore was a special treat.

I fell in love; I fell out of love. I learned stuff, then unlearned stuff. Stole a few coins, gave away a few coins. I knew what it was like to eat heartily, and what it was to be broke.

I mourned and laughed, nonetheless. Stood still and danced. Held my tongue and spoke. Across all this, life swung to both extremes, rarely in the middle, and rarer still the desire to remain torpid.

I learned early that change is inevitable. I then grew to become the man I hardly knew—wise and stupid, knowing all things and knowing nothing. Long have I wondered: Whatever happened to that crazy young boy who was much too headstrong to be of any good even to himself?

Then one day I woke up and my knees popped and creaked. Like old, haunted floorboards they screamed. My shoulders felt out of joint, my eyes drowned in a blur. Little did I realize that one can hurt himself while dreaming.

I stared in the mirror and a stranger looked back. Patches of white stubble had grown on his chin. The skin on his cheek fought the tug and pull of gravity. The whip of cold air from last night’s downpour struck the stranger’s bones. He could hardly breathe from the pain.

I looked away and strolled into the kitchen. The cold water felt like embers in my throat, the coffee like sand. Acid reflux, so it is called. The eggroll, much to my chagrin, felt like a corpse in my fingers.

I grinned. It was not the first time this had happened since I reached 60. Have you ever dislodged a tooth while giving a lecture? Suffice it that it is all in a day’s trouble for an old man like me.

I stared out the window and realized I have awakened to a world that is different. None of it was familiar. Too, could it be that none of it was real? Not the hot, seething summer sun, not the rains that pounded the roof like small fists. Even the scent of a drizzle seems deceitful.

Scary, yes, but not quite. I was raised to believe there is light at the end of a flashlight.

My mind immediately fled to my treasure trove of God’s promises: Even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you.

Shortly after a brief prayer, I rushed to bear the usual cares: food on the table, my next article. My unfinished book manuscripts. The monthly dues. The garbage collection. Bills and more bills. The loans. The pain in my wife’s knees. The forthcoming lectures. The onset of cataracts. Food left to rot in the fridge. My daughter’s tuition. Brain fog. Cat litter. Those little potholes on the roof where rainwater seeps in. The state of my soul.

All the books I have yet to buy. All the books I have yet to read. All the promises I intend to keep.

Whoever said growing old is no different from the aging of fine wine is whacky. All because pain is the love language of gout, arthritis, and neuropathy.

But who’s complaining? Not I, neither my clogged arteries. To borrow a line by Mary Oliver, “Hallelujah, I’m sixty now, and even a little more, / and some days I feel I have wings.” There is a timelessness to life once you’ve reached my age.

As poet Maya Angelou wrote, while old people have “a little less hair, a little less chin, / A lot less lungs and much less wind,” how blessed I am to still have the little boy within.

Then lo and behold, I see that same little boy in my apo, Trevor. Yes, proudly, I identify as a grandfather.