“I said to him afterward, ‘Hey, are you O.K.?’ And he said something like, ‘It’s no fun getting old. And I am so (freaking) old.’ But he said it in one of his funny voices, like he was some ancient old guy. Like it was a joke.” –A story told by an unnamed colleague on the set of Robin Williams’ television series “The Crazy Ones.” During a break in the shooting, Williams had gone off and sat by himself. He looked exhausted and sad.
It’s no joke, this business of getting old.
The August 25, 2014 issue of TIME devotes the last half-dozen pages to the life and art of Robin Williams, the comic genius who ended his own life last week.
I thought when I first heard the news and before reading anything about his chronic depression and repeated addictions that he feared getting old and decided to abort that process. Nothing I’ve read or heard since has changed that opinion.
No one should interpret any of this as my attempt to psychoanalyze Mr. Williams. Obviously, his situation–the circumstances that led him to make the decision to end his life on his own terms–was complicated by a thousand factors, as would be true of any of the rest of us. Someone said he was in the early stages of Parkinson’s.
I understand about the fear of getting old.
Recently, I was slated to preach on a Sunday night in a city where a longtime friend and former colleague lives in a Veterans Administration retirement facility. Fancy name for a nursing home. Bill is some 10 years older than me, I suppose, which would put him in his mid-80s. When I contacted his son about this visit, I learned my friend was in a nearby specialty hospital dealing with some kind of issue.
Late that Sunday afternoon, I spent 15 or 20 minutes at my friend’s hospital bed.
Seeing him was heart-breaking. He is gradually withering away. As the Apostle Paul put it, “the outer man is decaying” (2 Corinthians 4:16). He recognized me and was able to chat. We held hands and prayed together, and I told my wife, “The next time Bill and I see each other will be in Heaven.”
Before my parents died, seeing after their needs 24/7 required both of my sisters and one of my brothers and their adult children who live in the area. Even though everyone considered it a labor of love, the demands were constant and the burdens immense.
What, I wondered, does one do when he/she does not have grown daughters and sons nearby to take care of them?
That’s the case with most of us these days.
We say “growing old is not for sissies” as though it were a joke. But for many, the prospect is frightening.
I imagine even the strongest among us treat the last few years of our lives the way our Lord did the cross in one aspect at least, as something to be endured. “….for the joy set before Him, (Jesus) endured the cross, despising the shame….” (Hebrews 12:2).
You just try to get through it. On the other side of it all is a glorious future.
If indeed the dreaded aging process drove Robin Williams over the brink, whether that was the culprit or simply the final straw, then it makes us applaud all the more those who go courageously into those final years. We admire their fortitude and their faith.
But wait. We’re not through with this difficult subject.
Those last years and those final months can be a most special part of our testimony for the Lord Jesus.
God can do things through us then He never did before, can use us in ways not possible before.
I have no idea what this means for Joe or Margaret or you or your spouse. It’s different in each person.
I’m suggesting we trust the Lord in believing that the final years of our earthly pilgrimage are no mistake, no divine after-thought–as though the Creator said, “Uh oh–I never thought of giving them resources to handle this!”–and no fluke.
He knows what He is doing, and He said His strength is made perfect in weakness. If that’s the case, and we do not doubt it for a second, then there is no greater weakness in our earthly sojourn than our last, most elderly years.
And thus His strength should be the greatest at that, our weakest point.