Getting older isn’t for sissies

Getting older isn’t for sissies. And while it certainly beats the alternative, my brief hospital visit this week left me wondering by how much. 

Where the hospital might have been private, the ward most certainly wasn’t. Eight men, each at different stages of decay, confronted me as I was wheeled in after a procedure. And although I might not have been looking my best, I was still alert enough to know that none of them were likely to become lifelong friends. 

That didn’t stop me from getting to know more about them than I ever wanted to. The man in the bed next me, for instance, seemed to treat modesty as an optional extra. His frequent pilgrimages to the ablution block became a form of ward entertainment. He was trying to pass a kidney stone and, armed with a small sieve-like contraption, was determined to catch the offending pebble so that he could finally be discharged. His every trip became a communal event. We tracked his progress with the same emotional investment usually reserved for a World Cup final. 

When a private room eventually became available, my only regret was that I’d never find out if he succeeded in capturing his little asteroid. Plot twist: I did, in fact, follow up. When the night staff came to change my drip, I asked casually after my roommate’s progress, only to discover that he’d been using the sieve entirely incorrectly. I’m convinced that he in fact passed the stone sometime in August, and was just hanging around to get a break from the wife and kids, and for the food, attention, and diligent nursing. 

Then there was the older divorcee, entertaining a nervous middle-aged girlfriend who was meeting his children for the first time. She spoke without pause, as if afraid that silence might signal disapproval. At one point, I was certain she’d collapse from oxygen deprivation. Part of me hoped she would, not out of cruelty, but for the peace that would finally descend on the ward. 

Hospital wards are strange places. They’re equal parts vulnerability, absurdity, and family dynamics. You see too much, hear too much, and are forced into an intimacy no one asked for. There’s no hierarchy, just the sound of slippers shuffling to the bathroom, the occasional groan, and the soft glow of machines reminding you that life is fragile, funny, and finite. 

As friendly as I usually am, I made no friends there. I suspect the feeling was mutual. When the nurses finally wheeled me into a private room, complete with its own air-conditioner and bathroom, I felt a quiet surge of gratitude. Not just for privacy, but for perspective. 

Because here’s the thing about getting older: it’s not that the body falters, though it does, it’s that dignity becomes harder to hold on to. And when you find it again, even in a room of your own with a clean sheet and a closed door, it feels like victory.