Arriving at old age is no achievement if all you did was hide at the back of a self-driven bus.
Choosing the right roads into old age matters more than the odometer or the bumps we encounter.
There they were, the nanas, around their table of flour making the pastas. The air was thick with their tales and gossip, sometimes an old song, no doubt helped along by the wine they shared. As they day went on the food appeared and the eldest would ring the bell for the community to come. That's how we did things. The old folk were happy and we were well fed, it took a lot of work from the mamas and the papas. We were a community from the cradle to the grave, what else could a good life be?
Old age had once seemed some distant destination on some horizon uncharted, yet just as one step in front of the other will take you thousands of miles if you keep walking, it had arrived. Her hair was the colour of silver in various stages of oxidisation, every hue from fresh coins to almost slate grey. Once in a while I would close my eyes and listen to her voice, to the quick wit and laughter, and suddenly we were kids again and she was telling me some tall tale or irreverent joke. Esme was like that, always.
In the age of more basic machinery, of those polluting combustion engines, the old could be of less help than now. In the robot age they are the hardest working generation, freeing their children up for parenting and enjoying their youth. People learn and work from their late teens and early twenties as before, but few hours. The silver army is what we rely on, for they oversea the robots, the drones, the systems that grow and transport food, provide energy, make clothing and such. It keeps everyone healthier, more active and involved in living. For the very old there is care and love, we do it right, it's who we are.
There are heroes who are old and then there are those who simply dodged death long enough to get wrinkly.