Why Does Nobody Talk About The Hardest Part Of Getting Older?

Somewhere along the way, time with family stopped feeling routine and began feeling precious.

A close-up of an older man, likely around my dad’s age. Photo by SHVETS production from Pexels.

I couldn’t have been older than eight when I tried to outrun my dad. There was a field behind his house with two trees maybe thirty feet apart. I kept running back and forth between them in this faded t shirt that hung almost to my knees. By then Dad had already moved out, and weekends with him felt different after the divorce.

“Bet you can’t catch me,” I yelled.

I started running before he even answered.

Dad looked over at me smiling like he was trying not to laugh at how serious I was taking the whole thing.

“Oh really?”

He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt while I dug my shoes into the dirt like we were about to compete in the Olympics instead of standing beside a rusted fence and an old lawn chair tipped over in the grass.

“I’m serious,” I said.

I remember standing there out of breath for a second before asking him something that had probably been sitting in the back of my mind longer than I realized.

“Dad, were you faster before? When you were younger?”

For a second he didn’t say anything.

Then he reached over and squeezed the back of my neck.

“A little,” he said. “But I’m not old enough to lose to you yet.”

And before I could react, he took off running across the field.

I ran after him.

Didn’t even come close.

I just remember laughing while my shoes slipped through the grass trying to keep up with him.

Funny what sticks in your memory.

Years later, I’m standing beside the same man in a pharmacy while he holds a prescription bottle farther away from his face trying to read the label under fluorescent lights.

And part of me still expects him to win the race.

“My back’s killing me again,” Dad said.

We were sitting at a red light outside the pharmacy when he said it. I looked over from the passenger seat waiting for the joke that usually came after comments like that.

“What now?” I asked.

“My leg keeps going numb,” he said, adjusting himself in the driver’s seat. “Feels like somebody just tasered my spine!”

Then Dad laughed. So I laughed too.

At the time, I don’t think I had fully adjusted to the idea that my parents could actually get old.

Not really.

A few weeks later he called after the MRI appointment. I remember hearing papers moving around on the other end before he finally spoke.

“Looks like they’re cutting me open,” he said.

After that, our conversations started sounding different. We talked about steroid injections, nerve pain, surgeons, and recovery time. There were also prescription bottles lined up beside the coffee maker when I stopped by the house.

This was a man who used to carry couches up narrow staircases by himself. Now he was talking about whether he could make it through the grocery store without sitting down halfway through due to back pain.

People always said my parents were getting older. But somehow, I thought they just meant reading glasses and grey hair.

Perhaps that’s why I still think about those Saturday afternoons when I was a kid. Running across the field behind Dad’s house with grass hitting my knees while he chased after me laughing so hard he could barely breathe. Back then, I genuinely thought I had a chance of outrunning him.

If only I knew those precious memories wouldn’t last forever.

The feeling of watching my parents grow older is hard to explain. I’ve tried a few times now and still don’t think I’m getting it completely right.

Part of it shows up in moments like when my phone rings late at night and I see my parents’ name on the screen. Before I even answer, my stomach tightens a little as I wonder if something happened. Most of the time, nothing did. Still, the feeling shows up anyway.

I recently read something in Forbes about anticipatory grief, the feeling that can start before anything has actually happened. Before the funeral. Before the hospital room. Just the realization that the people who raised you are getting more frail… while life keeps moving on around them.

“Anticipatory grief begins before the actual loss, as we grapple with the impending loss of our parents’ vitality and independence,” writes Mark Travers. “It encompasses emotions like sadness, anxiety, guilt and anger — stemming from the anticipated loss of the strong individuals who cared for us, uncertainty about the future, ambivalence regarding caregiving responsibilities and frustration with the challenges of aging parents.”

Everybody already knows their parents won’t live forever. That’s not exactly groundbreaking news. But one day the idea stops feeling theoretical. And it becomes real in a way most people are never fully prepared for.

Just a few weeks ago, I watched my cousin Sarah read her father’s obituary at the funeral. Every few sentences she’d stop and stare down at the paper for a second like she was trying to get herself through the next line.

“He was the best dad,” she said.

Her voice cracked halfway through the sentence. Right after that you could hear people sniffling all across the room. Somebody near me cleared their throat three times trying not to cry.

“And I’m going to miss him so much.”

Sarah didn’t even try to hide the tears after that. They just kept falling while she stood there holding the paper with both hands. I don’t think it was really about the obituary itself. Rather, it felt more like all the things she thought there would still be time to say.

Most of us already know how this ends.

You make it to adulthood and eventually somebody’s in a hospital bed. Somebody’s in hospice. Somebody’s picture ends up on a table beside a guest book and a bowl of mints nobody eats. Still, people move through everyday life acting like there will always be another phone call.

I do it too.

I get busy. Or work runs late, and I see the missed call and think, “I’ll call tomorrow.” Then, tomorrow turns into next weekend... or the one after that.

What do you do then, when your parents inevitably pass away?

My friend spent nearly two hours replaying an old voicemail his mom left before Christmas. She was reminding him to bring a jacket because the weather report said snow was coming later that night.

Just a normal message.

That’s what got him.

He said if he’d known how much that voicemail would matter later, he would’ve saved every message and voicemail she ever left him.

I understood exactly what he meant.

Which is why I’ve recently been trying to reach for the phone more often. Sending the text right away instead of thinking about it for three days first. Coming over for dinner even when I’m tired, exhausted from work, and still have dishes sitting in the sink at home.

I still mess that up sometimes.

Probably more than I should.

But I keep thinking about Sarah standing there at the funeral with tears running down her face while she tried to finish reading those last few sentences about her dad. And it’s strange how fast an ordinary voice for decades can become something you’d give anything to hear one more time.

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