Health, Happiness, Love .... Old Age

James Wesley Martin, My Father (now deceased)

Eyes, teeth, hearing, taste, and smell..... all lose function with aging... but usually it occurs gradually so we don't notice it until it is gone ..... glasses for eyesight, false teeth or dental repairs for teeth, hearing aids, loss of taste in foods we used to enjoy, and reduced ability to smell odors, perfumes, or scents.

We not only lose our senses gradually, but also our mental alertness at some age... some more and earlier than others depending on their heredity, environment, and one's attention to their health and hygiene carefully avoiding accidents and diseases.

I guess at my age of 65, I am now comparing my health status to others around me that I know .... I am luckier than those already dead, more fortunate than those suffering in pain or coping with impaired mobility, dread diseases like Shingles, Parkinsons Disorder, Cancer, etc, and I spend more time now thinking about the quality of my life or that of friends and wonder for how long? At my age, there can be quick changes in health and well being .... this I know all too well!

I require prescription medications for my current status of health and regular physical and mental examinations. I am thankful for the professionals that attend to my health and that of others.

Health and Happiness...... can you have one without the other? I think the two attributes should be fused together as just one and not be separate? To be happy, am I bargaining with my health or that of others? To be healthy am I foregoing certain pleasures that would make me very happy? In fact if we put Love, Health, and Happiness inseparably as one then they could one could not be used to the disadvantage of the other. It would be impossible to discuss happiness alone since it also meant love and health.

How words in a language are engineered does create a conditioned culture, influences our individual behavior, and motivates appropriate attitudes about life, our psyche, and our social relationships during our life.  Since there is no such thing as a healthy or happy dead person, love is the only surviving attribute of who we once were.