i know a white-haired 84 year old man who sits on his bed for most of the day and radiates love out of his bones. his hair is usually tousled, very fluffy after the shower his carer gives him, and he puts on his glasses, sits on his bed, and waits for me to visit.
sometimes he remembers me, sometimes he doesn’t. that’s what his dementia does to him.
his last name stems from irish gaelic and means descendant of the little scholar. i think it fits him as well as the collection of ties he keeps hanging from his closet door. he asks me often if he’s the last room i have to visit. he asks me if he can help me in any way. he asks if my work is too difficult. he asks if i would like a cuppa.
he’s a bright and cheerful old man, you’d never think he is 84.
“i am 62 years older than you! that’s an awful lot of years, love, isn’nit?” he says. i laugh and agree. he then speaks in a tongue i don’t understand. he tells me, tempus fugit.
“time flies,” he says, “in latin. tempus fugit.”
he teaches me a new word or phrase whenever i visit him. he tries to. he does, when he remembers who i am, who he is, where he is.
the first time he taught me a word, he asked me if i knew what gonk meant.
recently, i was with my flatmate and we were looking at the mother’s day special section in big tesco. there were animal themed cutesy trinkets and cards with bad puns on them. they had big gnomes and other decors strewn around. one of the gnomes with a long, long hat was labeled as a gonk.
a rampant laugh had bubbled out of me. “what an odd name— gonk.” i had said to my flatmate and she had forcibly laughed along, a little uninterested.
the image presented itself from my memories when the old man posed the question to me. unsure, i asked him if it was a type of garden gnome. he shook his head, not invalidating my answer completely, but told me it meant ‘to take a nap’ in british slang.
“i’m going for a gonk, that’s how you say it.” he taught me. “when they overwork you, just go up to their faces and say i’m going to take a gonk, and none of you can stop me! and take break, love.”
he is the sweetest man, always smiling; always looking to do something; sometimes whistling a cheery tune in boredom as he goes about his day, wandering around the building. i wonder if i could ever be like him in my old age. i wonder if i will ever reach eighty-four.
“come back next weekend and let me teach you something new.”
“i’ll look forward to that,” i had said, very happy and a little unsure.
when i visited him next weekend, i hardly thought he would remember.
but he did.
tempus fugit, he taught me.
time flies. oh, yes, it does.
“have you been caught yet?” he asked looking over outside the window. there’s a bird/squirrel feeder fixed on the window, some peanuts and grains on it. no bird or squirrel has ever come for what is offered.
“caught? what do you mean?”
“do you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend?”
my chest had bloomed at the inclusivity. i think i audibly choked on air, a little. my heart was suddenly very loud in my chest.
“no, not yet. probably never.” i said to him with a breezy laugh to sound casual. it is what i always say to people. to myself.
“oh, you’re still very young! you have a lot to live. you’re only twenty-two.”
gosh, twenty-two? when did i get to twenty-two? yesterday i was in my teenage bed with my knees pulled up to my forehead, going through the throes of sixteen. primary sensorimotor system, the mesolimbic system and amygdala— all caught on fire. and now i am twenty-two, with a premature baby that is my frontal lobe.
“believe me, love. it will happen one day, when the time is right. you just have to wait. tempus fugit.”
tempus fugit.
he’s right. it has been flying. from 17, 18, 19, 20, 21— time has been fast forwarded and it hasn’t paused. i don’t know where the remote is. i don’t think i have ever been in possession of it, ever. these years have passed me by without my knowledge, and so will the upcoming ones.
he’s lived 84 years. a whole human life. an entirety of emotions— he’s felt. he’s also studied sociology at some point in life, he says. he’s lost his wife. now he’s at a nursing home waiting for death to promptly come to him.
the weekend after that when i visited him, his memory needed a little coaxing but he got there eventually. he taught me a saying again.
in latin, of course.
amantium irae amoris integratio est
he said, if you ever fall out of friendships or relationships, then i should renew it with a hug, with love.
i thought it was just a phrase, something that mattered to him most.
however, i found that it’s from a poem. it’s called amantium irae by richard edwardes
the literal translation of that stanza is: the falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love. however, the old man told me that it means when falling out of old friendships, renew it with a hug.
then he said, with his index finger pointed towards me, “remember this, love. always. if you ever fall out with someone, renew it with love.”
relationships shouldn’t be so easy to give up, right? how have we become so stagnant when it comes to things like love? emotions that are big enough to change brain chemistry, emotions that are so overarching that it makes you want to be better, do better, live better.
how do we give up so easily on it now?
all i could do was dumbly nod my head and say a string of ‘yes’s in response. all i could think of was how relationships, bonds, friendships, love itself has changed its meaning since when he was 22— in 62 years.
tempus fugit, indeed.
i was excited to see him this weekend as well. we greeted each other as usual, and i asked him at the end of my visit, “any new words or phrases for me to learn today?”
his eyes lit up, and so did my heart, because he still remembers.
“i have a latin phrase!” he told me, and i thought ‘oh another one?’
but when he said, “when falling out of old friendships, renew it with a hug.” i felt myself deflating.
he remembered but not enough. i smiled at him, i think i was sad.
i told him, “oh, i know that one. do you know that it’s a line from a poem?”
no, he said, he didn’t know. “i’ll bring it for you on paper, next weekend when i visit. would you like that?” i asked. and he gave me an enthusiastic response. he thanked me, but i should’ve thanked him instead.
i hope i remember him forever. and i hope, one day, he remembers only love and forgets all grief. i hope all of us do.
Guess we all learnt something new today.
Very inspiring 👏👏
Loved it.