Old People

I encountered somewhere the "lemon" theory of human life span. People are like cars. Most of us go into a gradual decline in our 40s or 50s or 60s and die in our 70s or 80s, just like cars that develop more and more rattles and clunks and eventually become too expensive to maintain. But once in a while you meet a car, or a person, that just won't quit. Something went very right in their construction and they just keep on functioning at a nearly perfect level way beyond a reasonable life span.

I've known a few of those in this parish. Bru Steward walked 5 km every day until a month before his death at age 93. At 92 he gladly took part in the kids' Good Friday drama; he made a Pilate of huge dignity. I always included him in the kids' time at the beginning of the service - it was a time for the child in us all, I said, and his child was alive and well. He died with dignity, surrounded by love.

We have one of those now, too: Peter, aged 83, who runs the badminton club. His mind is clearer than most younger people's. He joined our church because I took a public - very public - stand against the provincial government's attempts to close long-term care beds, and he is so busy with his political activity that he can't fit anything else into his schedule. We love him.

I started thinking about these people when I stumbled upon this site: http://bethe.cornell.edu/. Hans Bethe was another of those non-lemons. What a magnificent human, being able to explain his life's work so clearly at an age when the rest of us, if we survive, are content to be turnips.

I'm trying to think of what we can call these non-lemons. What's the opposite of lemon? Maybe pomegranate - it's a symbol of life and fertility, after all, with all its seeds. May we meet many of these human pomegranates in our lifetimes!