All Posts Tagged ‘ageing

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20 Years Ago Today

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I can hardly believe I’m writing this but 20 years ago today my mother died from cancer. I’ve been blogging so long I wrote about it when it happened and then 5 years later when I came to terms with her death and could put into words what it felt like and how it hit me. Not only did that article resonate with a lot of people, but I’ve come back and re-read it many many times over the years and it’s continued to give me comfort and perspective.

But 20 years. Twenty years.

When I was a kid my dad would often say “oh I haven’t seen him in 20 odd years!” and to me that seemed like an eternity. Now I’m at the ripe old age of 47 it doesn’t seem so long at all. In fact my mother died aged 61 – only 14 years away from where I am now. I still feel like my life has hardly begun and if I only had 14 years left I’d feel a little short changed to be honest. Looking back that’s the overriding sadness I have about my mother – I’d only just gotten to know her as a person rather than an authority figure and it wasn’t anywhere near enough.

I’m so young in this photo taken 9 months before she died. Just a kid really looking back as the middle aged man I am today. I had no idea the impact losing her would have on me over the coming years. Probably just as well.

My father never really got over the loss of my mother. Never dated again, certainly never re-married. She was the love of his life and he was a lost and broken man for many years, drinking too much, retreating into himself before he finally found a reason to carry on. And carry on he did alone. He’s still alive today but dementia has robbed him of a lot of his memories, although he’ll never forget his dear Jeannie. I spent a few hours with him a couple of weeks ago just talking about mum, showing him photos of the two of them when they were youngsters – it was lovely.

My parents when they were a couple of young pups!

It took me 5 years to learn to live without my mother and the article I wrote covers everything I felt at the time. But in the 15 years since while I have no longer found myself saying “oh mum would like that” before remembering she was gone. I haven’t felt the bouts of intense grief I used to feel, just now and then. Instead I have a sadness in me that is always there but I’m not aware of it most of the time. Sometimes she’ll pop up in a dream like she used to which is comforting. And sometimes I’ll play the one and only audio recording I have of her (where she was discussing with my father that she’d discovered she was allergic to a certain type of soap – I wish I had more) just to remember her laugh. Life does go on but the loss remains for the rest of your life. It becomes a piece of you, a scar that nobody can see.

It’s sad looking back over the past 20 years and realising how much my mother missed out on and how much my brother and I missed sharing our lives with her. I’ve certainly missed her counsel. But I’m always reminded that she felt the same about the loss of her mother who passed when I was less than a year old. She never got over it, would be sad sometimes and that was perfectly normal. It’s the circle of life. It sucks. But it’s the only one we’ve got. Some of us get to live into old age and some of us don’t. As I said 15 years ago, she wrote me a letter telling me to make the most of my life given how precious it is. I continue to do that to the best of my ability and I always will.

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You Play Football Long Enough, You End Up Being The Old Guy In The Team

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I’ve written in the past about my footballing (ok a long way in the past – my peak was probably around 15 years ago) and while I would never have made it as a professional or even a semi-professional, I was still able to play to a decent standard by being able to pass the ball. This sounds simple – have the ball at your feet at Point A and kick it to Point B.

But in fact there are a lot of moving parts. Everybody is moving, so you want the person you’re passing it to to be able to receive it knowing that when you kick it they’ll be in a different position by the time the ball gets there – so you pass it to where they’ll be. You also have opposing players who want to stop you passing. And the person you’re passing to also has people trying to stop them. And the opposition can read where your player is moving to so your player might fake where he’s going and you have to anticipate that. And the opposition know you want to pass it so anticipate that. Even though it takes a fraction of a second, when you play with and against clever players, you have to try and stay one step ahead. And that was about the only thing that I could successfully and reliably do and so play to a decent standard. Or maybe I was just lucky with my passing, often it was like my feet knew what to do and they just did it themselves.

Then a few years ago I was telling my brother about still playing football in my late 30s and he said “so are you the oldest guy in the team then?”. I was about to say “of course not” but then I thought about it and realised that indeed I was, and by quite a few years. How the hell did that happen?

Up until pre-coronavirus I was still playing indoor 6-a-side football once a week with one guy my age and a bunch of people in their 20s. While I could no longer do surging runs like I used to, I could still do alright, read the game and pass to the quicker and better players. Although it was damn hard physically to keep doing it. My left hip seemed to be the weak link after a niggling injury I’d had years before but I was keeping fit and flexible with Tony Horton’s P90X2 program (I really should write about that – and I wish it had been around 20 years ago) so I was able to keep going. But I knew my time was coming to a close. Nothing last for ever. Lockdown came and I figured that was my playing days done. I’d had a good run!

Then during one of the breaks between lockdown my girlfriend’s 16 year old son and his friends decided to start playing in a 6-a-side outdoor adult league. And started getting hammered each week by organised, competent footballers. He asked me if I could play and so I thought “what the hell”, laced up my boots and got back out on the pitch. And so it was that I ended up playing football in a team where I was 30 years older than my teammates.

To put it in context, for one of them to achieve the same feat their teammates won’t be born for another 14 years. I must say, I was proud that at the age of 46 I was able to play and not embarrass myself. Turns out I was by some years the oldest guy in the league and definitely not the least fit (top 10% I reckon). But it wasn’t about me at all.

I thought maybe I’d feel jealous that I no longer had the carefree raw energy and fitness of youth but instead I felt privileged to share a pitch with the next generation. Knowing the exciting futures they have ahead of them, that all the fun and adventures I had they still have to look forward to and more. Some of them will make very good footballers and play at a much higher level than I did if they want to. And game by game they’ve been learning to play as a team rather than running around like they do at school. It’s been great seeing first hand how they’ve improved. Even better is a couple of them are naturally gifted footballers so know which runs to make, know how to make a bit of space and think steps ahead of their much more experienced opponents. Which is easy for me as all I have to do is pass it to them and they can make it happen.

Football (sport in general) is a great leveller. If one of them tells me to mark someone or drop back I’ll do it. And vice versa. It’s a team game and there’s no room for some sort of adult / child interaction. We’re all equal out there and it’s really refreshing and energising. I’m sure for them too.

It won’t be long until they’re way beyond me and I won’t be in the same league as them. But to overlap the end of my playing days with the beginning of theirs is something I’ll cherish. While we may not be winning yet (one draw and one win so far), it’s really good fun. I’m hoping I’m around in 30 years time to see if any of them are still playing and take up my mantle of being the old guy in the team. I certainly hope so! 🙂