Things to remember

Muriel Spark wrote many of my favorite novels, including Memento Mori, which is about a loosely connected group of elderly people in postwar London. The old people, who are mostly but not all upper class, begin to receive anonymous telephone calls in which a caller asks for them by name, politely says “Remember you must die,” and then hangs up. The police become involved, and the investigator, a Chief Inspector who is rather old himself, finds that each person describes the caller differently, and so he doesn’t know if he’s looking for a young or old person, a man or a woman, English or European or American. 

While some of the victims are upset by the calls, others are unbothered. The message is after all not threatening (the caller never threatens to hasten the listener’s death, only points out that it will happen one day) and ultimately true - true for everyone, not just old people. But of course, it’s an easier message to accept for some than others. If you have regrets - real regrets, not minor ones - then old age is when you have to accept that you might not have enough time to make amends or to do that thing that you always wish you’d done. But that’s the way it is. A human lifespan is finite. Everyone must die, and we need to remember this and live accordingly. We need the occasional memento mori. 

*****

I first read Memento Mori when I was in my late 20s. At that time, I’d have described the novel's characters, who mostly range in age from 75 to 85, as very, very old people. The characters are all quite different, each with their own quirks and foibles, but one thing they have in common is that most of them do and say whatever they want, having reached the age at which people are no longer supposed to care about what others think about them. I recall the phrase  “potent distillations of themselves” to describe old people who don’t so much change as they grow older; they just become more fully and obviously the people they have always been. 

My mother is now a potent distillation of herself. And that is all I have to say about that. 

Except for this: Just because you can get away with doing or saying whatever you want under the guise of old age, it doesn’t follow that you should. Even in TV sitcoms, brutal outspokenness or oblivious-to-the-feelings-of-others behavior has very limited comic appeal. In real life, it’s not funny at all. 

This is something that I’m writing down, so that I can remember it when I’m old.