'A Birthday Wish'
Your age today is what you are, but isn't what you will become, as it can never encompass the boundless love and consideration you have always held for your neighbour, family and friends. With the ending of each day, your life has grown larger as you digest the experiences you have had and shared since getting out of bed that morning. The circumference of your world has widened in accordance with the largess of your smile and the breadth of your vision. It is as though your 'all seeing eye' has never lost sight of the compassion and understanding you have to offer in every situation you find yourself in. The sun that shines down on you, warms your solicitations and shakes hands with your soul, inducing a sense of peace and making you feel at one with the ground that you walk on and the air that you breathe. You are to all those who know and love you, a superman in a world of mere mortals.
The incoming tide always brings with it enough happiness and contentment to make you content with your stage in life, while still being able to readily recall the boy you were at the age of ten when you whiled away a full day from dawn to dusk, blowing bubbles beneath a tree, chasing rainbows until they vanished from the sky or jumping in puddles after the pouring rain.
While youth and old age seem to be separated in society by a generational gap that breeds ignorance to the specific needs of each other's group, whatever age you are you have always found a place of acceptance in those groups you enter. You love listening to and telling stories, especially when both young and old can share this treasured experience in the comfort of an autumnal evening beneath the porch.
You are always near to hand if ever you are needed, and although not a loner, you have never followed the crowd. You value both solitude and social discourse and though you never speak more than the other person, you always seem to say much more. You were born a rebel and having left the womb as one and having lived as one all of your life, it is only fitting that you will be buried a rebel. You have always continued to derive satisfaction from blowing bubbles at life and sticking a finger up to officious authority wherever you find it, whatever age you are at. You know that society is still blighted with its own particular class struggle and cultural snobbery and yet, you have never been one to look down on others.
You have always understood that life is for living and put plainly, it's too damn short to waste upon false politeness and obtuse niceties. There was never a person or institution able to place an old age pensioner's restraint around your girth when you reached the age of 65, because you knew that the Laws of the Land were essentially there to protect property and not the person. To look in the newspaper any day of the week or turn on the radio would ironically confirm that to burn down a large store would receive as long a prison sentence from the Court as to set a person on fire deliberately!
Because you know enough of the law, you are aware that there is so much that a person can do in this life, however dangerous or mind boggling without risk of legal restraint or moral approbation. Fat old men are allowed to marry beautifully slim women who are forty years younger than they, if they can manage to catch them from their wheel chairs. This age gap between an old man and young wife is even wider when the elder person is both famous and rich.
If you so choose, you can walk up and down the busiest street in the city pulling the most stupid face imaginable, show your bare bottom in front of the television cameras or even scratch in the most private place of your person while out shopping in the high street. If a bride chooses to set a new bridal fashion and marry without wearing any knickers then she is most unlikely to get booked by the police for indecent exposure. Even if ten thousand streakers decide to take the plunge and run into the sea at Brighton, nobody is likely to prosecute them or lock them up in jail and throw away the key! You can do all that and........wait for it......'nothing will happen as a consequence'. You are most unlikely to be arrested or locked up and the world will still continue to go on around you. The police won't arrest you and carry you off in the 'Black Maria'. The spectating crowds will simply smile at the strange behaviour they saw out on a Sunday stroll as they carry on about their own business. It is most unlikely to be reported in the press and, even if it was, you will probably be turned into a minor celebrity in your neighbourhood for the whole of fifteen minutes!
Who knows what it is precisely that a woman sees in a man when she is looking for a soul mate for the rest of her life? It is always dangerous to turn up one's nose at strange images of other couples in love. So pull your finger out and get on with your own life instead of worrying about other people's.
You know there is no law that says one cannot ride the rapids, drive a golf ball from 200 metres high above 5th Avenue, walk a tightrope across the Niagra Falls, swim the Channel, free fall or even base jump, just because one collects a pension! You no longer need a 'bucket list' to round off your wide range of experiences and I know that there is no level of fear that will immobilise you and lead you to seek continuous refuge in a television armchair; pottering from room to room aimlessly in an old folk's home when you could return to The Grand Canyon on your next birthday and see if you can find that vantage point from the top that you found on your fortieth birthday visit to the USA.
Just because the first book you ever clapped eyes on was a 'First World War' ration book, it didn't prevent you driving a motor car through a ball of flames, pot-holing in the deep Derbyshire Caves, bronco busting in Calgary, deep sea diving in the Maldives, jumping a motor bike over a moving car or even walking the span of an aeroplane in flight before disembarking in Acapulca to finish the day off with a little dive off their beautiful cliffs, to celebrate your seventieth year of life! Nor did it prevent you sticking your head in the mouth of a man-eating lion, lying beneath an elephant's foot, stroking a baby crocodile or patting a brown bear on its head!
You have never lost sight of the goodness of your fellow man, nor have you been hasty to call him out for some unintentional offence of your sensibilities. While you have loved many a person and relished many an experience during your life to date, no single love you have ever felt could touch or come close to your greatest love of all; the love of your wife. I know that this was love at first sight. Your wife fell in love with you the first time she saw you and stayed in love with you for the rest of her life.
You have never stopped loving your wife, and even though she has now been dead for the past 16 years, you know that you shall sleep beside her again in the future when the wheel of life has turned full circle and your place in heaven beckons you there. And even though you can no longer hold her hand, no science can ever prevent you talking to her and sensing her presence alongside you throughout moments of quiet reflection and spiritual connection wherever you are.
I know that on occasions, you have said you have seen the reflection of her favourite cat who died two days after her. You still possess a heavy feeling of loss and a need to cry whenever you think of her in both her youth and her years of graceful advancement through to death and spirit. I remember you once telling me that when you sense her ghostly presence, she is always in the spiritual body of a 30-year old. You also told me that during your years of unbridled passion, only she could provide the physical mooring and emotional ballast that kept you soundly anchored to your marriage vows.
You have never stopped loving your wife, and even though she has now been dead for the past 16 years, you know that you shall sleep beside her again in the future when the wheel of life has turned full circle and your place in heaven beckons you there. And even though you can no longer hold her hand, no science can ever prevent you talking to her and sensing her presence alongside you throughout moments of quiet reflection and spiritual connection wherever you are.
I know that on occasions, you have said you have seen the reflection of her favourite cat who died two days after her. You still possess a heavy feeling of loss and a need to cry whenever you think of her in both her youth and her years of graceful advancement through to death and spirit. I remember you once telling me that when you sense her ghostly presence, she is always in the spiritual body of a 30-year old. You also told me that during your years of unbridled passion, only she could provide the physical mooring and emotional ballast that kept you soundly anchored to your marriage vows.
The tender folds of advancing years in your face enhances the natural manliness you have always been blessed with. Throughout your long life, you have never been afraid to share the pains and pleasures of your children and family, and though you will love them all until you rest on the other side of the green sod and would willingly die for them if the need ever arose, you are wise enough, 'never to live for them'; for they need their independence from their parents no less than you or I did. It is said that no son can ever truly fully grow into the man he is destined to be until his father is no more. It is as though the death of the parent is the final requirement to produce the last growth spurt in the human personality and that it is only when the father is gone that the son can finally reach maturity. It is only after the parent has left the tree that the fledgling can truly fly the nest. That is why we will always remain their children, whatever our ages, as long as our parents live.
Now that you have reached your one hundreth year, and I am but two behind, and although you are less in height since your late eighties, you have continued to grow in stature. I have always admired the way that you have never tried to look big at the expense of making me look smaller, for you know that to do so only makes both parties look less in the eyes of others. That is why I value our friendship dearly, and the week would not be the same without our Thursday afternoon discussions. It is surprising how much the world can be set to right between two old men from the comfort of their rocking chairs. Do you recall how, between us, we solved the 'watering the garden problem' you had when it became too heavy a task to carry the can all the way up and down your garden steps dozens of times daily? I hope that when it's time for one of us to leave this side of life, that it won't be much longer before the other is also called.
I remember well, the advice you once gave my brother when he was going through a difficult period in his life and seemed to be without purpose. You advised him in the following words and he put them to good use, as though they came from from the mouth of Confucius:
"If you want to be happy, then be so, for there is nothing that is either 'good' or 'bad' in this world; nothing that makes one 'sad' or 'happy', that thinking it so will not make it so! When happiness touches you in abundance, share it with another and widen its intensity. When sorrow enters your life, that is the time to draw upon the presence and strengths of your friends, for a sorrow shared is sooner transformed to a blessing experienced than any amount of unhappiness endured alone. Never point your finger of approbation at another, as to do so involves sticking your own thumb in your own eye. Never put your pencil down, as enduring happiness decrees that one never reaches the end of their tick list in 'things to do before they die'."
As Lao Tzu remarked, "Simplicity is the key to truth and freedom." It is the easiest thing in the world to tell the truth and to enjoy freedom. All one has to do is to just be themselves.
I know that you have always wanted to go over a waterfall in a barrel, ride the wall of death and bungee jump from a great height, but there's just no way that your weak heart could take the strain any more. You have also expressed a desire to ride a crazy bull, do a bit of sheer-face rock climbing and hang from a clock face in New York, hundreds of metres up in the air, just like a Harold Lloyd film stunt, but your arthritic hands has also put paid to that dream. You will just have to put these experiences in your 'wanted to, but never got around to' drawer. Still, if you can manage to get your best suit cleaned and your shoes polished for next Saturday morning, I'll arrange for my lad to take us both to Lancashire and see the statue of our dear friend Eric Morcambe. They do say that any woman who dances around it singing, 'Bring me sunshine, bring me love' is never left wanting! What do you say. Let me know if you're up for it?
"If you want to be happy, then be so, for there is nothing that is either 'good' or 'bad' in this world; nothing that makes one 'sad' or 'happy', that thinking it so will not make it so! When happiness touches you in abundance, share it with another and widen its intensity. When sorrow enters your life, that is the time to draw upon the presence and strengths of your friends, for a sorrow shared is sooner transformed to a blessing experienced than any amount of unhappiness endured alone. Never point your finger of approbation at another, as to do so involves sticking your own thumb in your own eye. Never put your pencil down, as enduring happiness decrees that one never reaches the end of their tick list in 'things to do before they die'."
As Lao Tzu remarked, "Simplicity is the key to truth and freedom." It is the easiest thing in the world to tell the truth and to enjoy freedom. All one has to do is to just be themselves.
I know that you have always wanted to go over a waterfall in a barrel, ride the wall of death and bungee jump from a great height, but there's just no way that your weak heart could take the strain any more. You have also expressed a desire to ride a crazy bull, do a bit of sheer-face rock climbing and hang from a clock face in New York, hundreds of metres up in the air, just like a Harold Lloyd film stunt, but your arthritic hands has also put paid to that dream. You will just have to put these experiences in your 'wanted to, but never got around to' drawer. Still, if you can manage to get your best suit cleaned and your shoes polished for next Saturday morning, I'll arrange for my lad to take us both to Lancashire and see the statue of our dear friend Eric Morcambe. They do say that any woman who dances around it singing, 'Bring me sunshine, bring me love' is never left wanting! What do you say. Let me know if you're up for it?
Finally, I remember you telling my brother, "Always look out for the underdog, the village idiot, the old, the infirm, the disabled and the disadvantaged. Always seek to protect the young, for in their innocence rests the salvation of all mankind. Never abuse those unfortunates which abuse made unfortunate in the first place. Accept the advice of all those wise enough to know they don’t know it all, and don’t ever reject the validity of another’s right to express their viewpoint, particularly when it opposes yours. Always remember that when we rescue a refugee child, we help to preserve our own freedom; enabling the child to grow in confidence and intelligence into productive adulthood and eldery wisdom. The one we save will one day be capable of helping others less fortunate than themselves."
"Pay homage to God and tax to the Government. Give alms to the beggar and help to the helpless. Never go to sleep on a full stomach or an empty heart, and before you close your eyes for the night, dispel any anger you may hold for any other man, woman or child who offended you. Remember, if you hate a person, you often hate something inside them that is part of yourself. It makes good sense to seek out the good in others, not the bad; to smell their fragrance as opposed to their defecation. Much better to touch their present sensibilities than rummage through the compost of their failed relationships before you met. So look into the mirror of their character and find your own image there."
"Last, but by no means, always start the day by looking in the mirror and telling yourself that ‘I love myself and I am a person of worth’. End the day with your expression of the same belief, never forgetting, throughout all parts of your day ‘that as you are special, then so is every person and creature who occupies the earth’. Do all this and you will remain true to yourself and false to no man."
These are the words of wisdom that you spoke to my brother in his hour of need and he has never looked back since. Everyone who has ever had occasion to meet you has been blessed to have been in the presence of greatness. Happy 100th birthday. Long live the Queen. Long live you, my dear old friend!
These are the words of wisdom that you spoke to my brother in his hour of need and he has never looked back since. Everyone who has ever had occasion to meet you has been blessed to have been in the presence of greatness. Happy 100th birthday. Long live the Queen. Long live you, my dear old friend!
Oh, and by the way, the queen and the staff at Buckingham Palace decided to have a whip round and she has sent you something special along with her birthday card. I've left your presents outside for you to look at. I hope you like them, friend. Here's my card for you. You won't remember this but you bought me this card on my very first birthday, 98 years ago. So I thought it would be a nice gesture to give you it back for your hundredth. Happy birthday!
Copyright William Forde May, 2012.
Copyright William Forde May, 2012.
