THE GOOD OLD DAYS

A 94-year-old lady came across the road today to ask if we could fill her watering can. She’s a neighbour of the people we’re (basically) house-sitting for.

I filled up the can of course, but not without a very friendly chat. She seemed grateful for the short conversation, inconsequential though it might have seemed to anyone else. I wished her a lovely Sunday, she beamed, and then hinted that it would be a lonely one rather than a lovely one, given that her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were not coming to see her.

“They’re living their own lives of course,” she said, leaning on her stick. “… and so they should. After all, when we were their age, we did exactly the same.”

I saw a brief flicker of sadness in her eyes. It could have been memories, it could have been the loneliness of the big family home on the other side of the street. It was probably a little bit of both. I felt it too. If we achieve one thing with our own family, I thought, I want our home to be somewhere the children always want to come back to.

“Of course,” she went on, “With the world today, I honestly think we had it better in the 50s.”

“Oh yes,” I replied (as though I had been there) and then just for clarity added, “I really think you did.”

It hit me that a lot of people I know might raise an eyebrow at this generation pointing that exact thing out. Life was better in the 50s? Yeah, because you lot started borrowing all our wealth, houses and natural resources, and now we’re all paying it back while you get misty-eyed over Happy Days.

But it wasn’t this lady’s fault. She’d had a good life, and I don’t think anyone would begrudge her that. And she misses her family, which I think is probably one of the most human emotions to resonate with.

“But the news these days is terrible.”

“I’d just switch it off if I were you,” I replied. “Just turn it off at the plug.”

Some people you can say that to and they don’t bristle with annoyance. I calculated this would be alright, and I think it was. We exchanged a ‘god-bless’ and then she ambled carefully back to her large empty house.

I do think the news is depressing. I think social media too, amplifies it, shouts it back at you, makes it ring like an alarm in your ears that you can’t switch off. At 94, I reckon I’d happily just disconnect from it all and see out my days with a bookshelf, a telephone, and the joy of family babbling like music through the house. And maybe I’d look back to the 90s and wonder if perhaps that were the best time, the golden age, the perfect moment to have been alive. Then, as the sun fell through the window and golden light illuminated the book in my hand, I’d realise that I had been wrong about that, and smile.