I go often to the theme of age and aging because it is one of the inescapable aspects of life. It is also an issue, for me at least, that is as fascinating as well as it is confounding. I find the subtle, almost imperceptible ease with which a body changes along the different stages of growing up fascinating. Even as a parent, one is often caught by surprise at how a child develops before one’s eyes. An infant is born virtually helpless through a narrow opening measured in mere centimetres. They are thoroughly unaware of their surroundings. They are completely dependent. Yet, in one short calendar year, a toddler is running around asserting independence while causing mischief and unspeakable joy. This fascinating and transformative growth continues into late adolescence or young adulthood before it eases out. That is when the height stops and the body fills out. And personality evolves. It is the time old friends are still easily recognizable even when you have not seen each other in decades. Very little change is found in early middle-age except perhaps the girth which extends or distends in line with lifestyle choices. Or sprinkles of grey in the hair which again can be traced to lifestyle choices. But what I find confounding and almost depressing is how people change – sometimes so rapidly - after age 60 or 65. A person can be sharp and sprightly one year. The next year, they are dowdy and bent. All in twelve calendar months or less. Because of this, I have had difficulty recognizing acquaintances and even friends from photographs and TV screens at events. What stares at me at age 70 or 80, is so different from what they were five, ten years earlier. I am no exception. I have had difficulty recognizing even me at times. I have looked in the mirror sometimes, and wondered at the stranger staring at me – dull, sunken eyes with bags around them, drawn looks, wrinkles, long, underfed neck. All of course crowned by white, receding hair.

Last week, I attended the 80th birthday events of Mrs. Izegbua Amusu. The events reminded me so vividly, yet so sentimentally, about the one she had twenty years earlier at her 60th. Quite a few of those at the events were at her 60th as they were mainly people she and her husband, Tunde Amusu, a former CEO of Flour Mills of Nigeria, a multi-national company, had cultivated over the years. Some had passed on since then including her husband who was so sprightly, so full of life at that 60th birthday party. Yet he left the world suddenly just two months after the party. At the events last week, was the last person to see him alive. At the events was the close friend who had been diagnosed with what was thought to be a terminal illness and Mr. Amusu wanted to fly over to the US to cheer him up and keep him company during the difficult medical sessions. Alas, he was the one who didn’t make it past the UK. His sudden death taught me so many lessons about life and how the best laid plans can go awry – I was supposed to spend two weeks with him in the UK immediately after his US visit. Only his wife and children can surmise how things had changed for them socially, spiritually, psychologically and materially since his death. I am sure they would look around the hall and the memories would flood back as they did for me. The celebrant, if she allowed herself that indulgence, would have imagined how differently things could have been if her husband was alive and moving around the hall with his jokes and effervescent presence. Only she could look at each face and tell the ‘story’ of the role each of her husband’s friends played over the years. 20 years is a long time without one’s confidant and pillar of support. I have seen her change, subtle in areas, dramatic in areas, as she adjusted to the loss. Hers is a story of stoicism and inner strength and an uncommon attachment to the ideals of the past. I have found in my private discussions with her that she has not really let go. Perhaps now is the time at 80, to let the shadows of the past fall off and to enjoy what is left.

The events started with a church service. At the end of which I found myself besides one of the officiating priests who happened to be an Associate Priest ten years ago at the Parish where I worship. I greeted him warmly and familiarly. His polite but guarded response told me he didn’t recognize me. I had to mention my name. What followed was an embrace and the words ‘you look so different’. Yes, nothing stays the same and I am no exception. The truism of that statement was to hit me as we got to the reception. As I said, many of those people had been known to me for decades. Our paths had crisscrossed professionally and socially over the years. Yet, it was difficult to put names to some faces. Some came in doubled over walking sticks. Some came in with impaired sights and had to ‘feel’ their way around. Some relied on solicitous spouses to chaperon them. One or two came in with a care giver or a wet nurse. These illustrate the baggage and the manner the lines of life have fallen over some over the years. But then, these guys are largely in their 80s and just about 2 percent of people get to be 80 all over the world – the percentage is much less in Nigeria. So, in many ways, they are the lucky ones. White hair is a privilege granted only to a few. Old age is granted to even fewer. So that old, sunken face I see in the mirror is a gift denied many. Those lines and aging signs I find discomfiting are proofs that I have lived. And those who came to the 80th birthday celebration with caregivers and maybe in diapers, have just told the world that they are still alive and they can still move around.

Old age is a blessing which requires a different mindset to appreciate. One which accepts that no one stays the same. ‘Enjoy what you can while you can’ should be boldly inserted in the manual of old age if ever one was written. Circumstances can change so quickly.

Happy birthday to a ‘Special Aunty’. You have aged well. And the way you moved around the hall showed you are fit. Very fit. May your twilight years continue to be kind to you.

• Muyiwa Adetiba is a veteran journalist and publisher. He can be reached via titbits2012@yahoo.com

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