As the train was pulling out of Mallow, I had just finished telling Catherine about my life’s journey, when she embarked on telling me hers. And what a journey.

She had spent the last 50 years of her life caring for communities mostly in eastern Africa. She was a builder, a painter, a plasterer, a carpenter, and also a pastor, a confessor, and a teacher. Everything she knew, she had learned single-handedly.

Her journey started the evening she landed in Rwanda in 1973. She described it like a scene straight out of John Grisham’s novel The Testament (which I highly recommend).

Her storytelling was epic, and her ability to weave pictures into her stories was nothing short of gifted. As she finished her life’s story, she said: “Not bad for a 78-year-old.”

To be honest, I was shocked. I told her she looked no older than her late 50s. She roared laughing and replied: “All us women love compliments.”

We parted company with a hug after the train arrived in Dublin. She was flying back to Africa the next day.

Our conversation stayed with me long after we said goodbye, but her parting words will live forever.

She said: “Always remember that growing old is a privilege denied to so many.

The mornings that voice inside my head tells me I’m getting old, I remind it that I’m one of the lucky ones. 

"So enjoy your time here, and put it to good use.”

I am 62 now. When my late father was this age, I was 31. I can recall thinking to myself back then that the number of years between us was enormous, but in hindsight, it wasn’t.

The only difference between us was that he had more living behind him. As a result, he was wiser than I was. Now I am 62 and, I like to think, I am wiser.

Could I ever have imagined back then what it might feel like to be twice that age? No, but in many ways there is no comparison between who I was then and the person I am now.

Do I feel the stretch of those years physically? Not particularly. Life is not as simple and linear as I believed it was back then.

Life is complex and deviating, with many unexpected interruptions, and the occasional reminder of our mortality.

My father passed away five years ago, a few months shy of his 90th birthday. He was a wonderful man, insightful and endearing. He enjoyed robust conversation, and those dad jokes that would have him laughing so hard, that the tears would stream down his cheeks.

Looking back, in his later years, I am so grateful I called in on him most mornings while on my way to work.

I learned more about the privilege of growing older from him in his final couple of years, and I am also grateful for that because it stands to me as I move on now through my own life. He would have been 95 last Thursday.

Life does not prepare us for loss, and when it comes to the emptiness within, the absence is brutal to the core.

Photographs will never be the same, while they’re often all we are left with — the image of a smiling face that you turn to for support as you try to navigate life without a loved one.

We marked National Senior Citizens Day last Monday. It shouldn’t just be one day every year when we honour loved ones who made it possible for us to be here. It should be a part of who we are and what we do all the time.

Nursing homes have long waiting lists, bursting at the seams with residents who can’t live anywhere else for whatever reasons.

The business of homes from home for our elders is a big buck-making industry. The price of private residential care is disgraceful, as is the cost of private healthcare.

For many, there are heartbreaking reasons for sending loved ones to these homes, usually because they are beyond homecare; but there are others for whom putting their elders away is a personal choice because they can’t be bothered, a cop-out of epic moral proportions. Greed and selfishness wear many disguises.

The term ‘elder’ comes from a Latin translation meaning ‘chief’ and ‘teacher’. In ancient civilisations, the elder was the head of the community. Modern society appears to have all but forgotten its elders, to the point where many people see them as a burden on resources. That includes many politicians, doctors, neighbours, sons, and daughters.

Buddhism and karma

Perhaps Buddhism has the right idea when it talks about karma.

Karma is action driven by intention which leads to future consequences. The Buddha taught us that karmic ‘conditioning’ is a process by which a person’s nature is shaped by their moral actions. The way we treat our elders is the way we can expect to be treated when we reach that stage in our own lives.

Growing old is a privilege denied to many. Unfortunately, ageism is also a problem, as is misanthropy — a general contempt for other people and their behaviour.

In today’s youth-obsessed culture, each of us has a duty of care to support our elders — the same people who made life possible for us. It’s not a lot to ask; or is it?