Cheerful REPLY on fear in old age from QUORA this morning

Answered by Mick W May 23 Why do we become more scared as we grow older? My dad had become more fatigued week by week at age 74. He had been very fit and healthy, a guy who believed devoutly in exercise, and he’d maintained his weight at a healthy 160 pounds (he was 5′9″). One day he had trouble climbing a set of five steps. Someone told him, “Jim, you’d better go to the doctor.” He went. Doc’s verdict: “AML leukemia. You have two weeks left to live.” For the many thousands on Quora who say they do not fear dying, try that one on. 25-year-olds have no fear of death. It’s because they’re so far away from it. Even 75-year-olds can convince themselves they have no fear of death. Just put it out of their minds. But if the hospital runs tests on you and the result is “You have two weeks left,” it can turn your world upside down. Dean, a friend of mine from Pensacola, was in Vietnam as a soldier in the heat of combat in 1967. I couldn’t help noticing the pronounced limp he walked with after he returned home. I asked him one day if he was ever scared. He laughed. “Fear was a constant we lived with. I’d never known what fear was till I came under fire from people trying their best to kill me. It was the kind of fear that makes you tremble all over, the kind that causes an accident in your pants before you even knew it had happened. First time under fire, I had to hug my arms tightly to keep them from shaking violently.” He went on to tell me how his platoon had been ambushed. How he’d been hit in the right leg and was down. Everyone in his platoon had been hit and was down. He said Viet Cong soldiers then came through that field kicking every American. These Viet Cong then put a bullet in the head of any American still alive. Dean said he’d rolled with the kick, and they’d assumed he was dead and bypassed him. An American chopper later picked him and one other wounded soldier up from that quiet but bloody field. Ever since that day, he’d been in and out of psych wards. As elderly folks we may not have to face enemy fire like Dean did, but we may have to face the day when the doc tells us our time is up. It would take nerves of steel, inhuman resolve, to react with perfect equanimity to such news. Typically, that news is shattering, and certainly so to those who truly love life. Hospice nurse Karen Bell calls it “ego chill.” She has seen too often what that news does to people. I have fears, most due to aging. I fear my wife’s death. She’s 66 and doing well now, but she’s been through the rounds with NHL lymphoma already. The most frightening moment of my life was when I heard that diagnosis for her. I feared I would lose her. She is a part of me. Should she die before me, half of me will be gone. I do not think life will be worth living any more. Chances are, though, I will go first as I am eight years older and because the latest statistics show that women outlive men typically by about 5.5 years. And I fear my own death, too. Partly on her account, partly on my own. I also fear the humiliation and degradation that often accompanies aging, especially if I live a long time, like well into my 80s. I fear losing control of bodily functions, as many do. I fear loss of memory, dementia. I fear dying alone, though I fear my wife’s dying alone even more than I fear it myself. There is much to fear in the aging process. For now, my mind is sharp, I feel very good. But that won’t last forever. 74 is still fairly young, at least compared to 84, 89, or 94, the age both grandmothers made. The future is a foreign country. Only time knows. 118.6K views View 1,359 upvotes View 3 shares 1 of 42 answers