Life goes on

I’m currently spending a couple of days in the country with my aged father. He’s not in a particularly good shape these days, mentally or physically, but hey that’s life when you’re a nonagenarian.

Yesterday shortly before lunch an octogenarian gent and friend of my father’s drove over, uninvited and unannounced, in order to drop off a complimentary copy of a short book he had written.

As I strolled over to meet him in the driveway he explained his purpose and asked whether – if my father was up and about – he could say hello.

Of course he could.

Our visitor, a former senior diplomat in another life, then greeted my parent as only long-time friends do, pulled up a chair and spent ten minutes or so chatting with us on the terrace.

Such a laidback and affable gent – the experience was rewarding and enjoyable for everyone present.

And then suddenly he was off, saying his hearty goodbyes before he went.

I walked him back to his car. As we did so he first told me that he greatly valued his friendship with my father because – wherever he had been at any time (he had spent much of his career overseas), it had been a constant source of comfort that my father was one of those rare people with whom you could always resume a friendship from exactly where it had left off.

The other thing he mentioned – and this without causing any offence at all – was that, upon arriving, he had been greatly shocked by my father’s deterioration since he had last set eyes upon him.

When I mentioned this to the carer in passing when we were alone together, the carer responded with the obvious point (well, obvious when I thought about it afterwards) that an elderly person’s decline is always less noticeable to those who spend time with him regularly than it is to those who haven’t seen him in a while.