One should arrive at "old" with real wisdom and a profound sense that your task is to nurture and protect younger generations.
Old is just fine when you can look back and feel proud of the path you trod, of the role model you are.
In truth, the only fortune the young can inherit from the old is the kind wisdom that comes with age and maturity, to show how to develop into good role models, how to take their place in time.
The most important tasks of the old are showing with good example how to lead a good life, become a good person and take good care of community and nature.
My Grandfather was old enough to have known pain and wise enough to seek joy. Of his struggles, he was silent, of his laughter, he was loud. Perhaps in that wisdom of years, in the time it takes for a youth to have such angelic hair to feather his head, he had learned that every day was a gift that was his choice to either embrace or eschew. His daily choice was clear in his smile and eyes of deep kindness. I loved him. I miss him.
Her hair was silver, as was the Celtic ring she wore. For her entire life she had been drawn to those roots without any audible calling. Old age had taken perhaps the obvious senses yet increased that to which the excitement of youth is often unaware, the calling of the spirit world. She was a grandmother to us all, would love anyone who came her way and teach them the wisdom only pain can teach and the heart recall.
I can survive anything if I feel loved, even these pains that come to explode within, these silent hand grenades. With kindness I can make it, with compassion there is grace. And when you smile at me you are my heroine, my morphine, finer than any doctor can prescribe.