Andrew Miller: Why we should all relish the sunset years

Mum’s face lit up when I suggested we go for a drive. Without any questions, she rocked to her feet and started shuffling her walker toward the door before I could change my mind.

The promise of some different sights and fresh air was good enough.

She had been napping in her chair, with the TV blaring. Antiques Roadshow had some punter on, queuing in the manicured grounds of a capital-rich cash-poor estate, finding out with mock surprise that their faux-heirloom might fetch a hundred pounds at auction. As if they hadn’t Googled it already.

It’s non-confronting TV — no live footage of missiles landing on family homes, just a few artefacts the victors claimed, among a procession of meubles, medals and antiques.

As I guided her fall into the front seat of the car she advised, as she always does, “Don’t get old”. As always, I replied, “I’ll try to remember that.”

We headed down along the coast, in search of the holy grail — half-decent coffee.

She gestured toward lines of grey SUVs and utes in the beach carparks, asking, “Why aren’t all these people working?”

“We’re not either,” I countered.

She shrugged.

We have stuck to safe topics of conversation all these years. Too much has gone unsaid, but she has always preferred chatting about Kevin’s Grand Designs rather than the grand design. Loss of a child, divorce, friends and family gone too young — never dissected.

Is it better not to dwell on sad things, or was I just cowardly — making a cup of tea on the path of least resistance? Is it enough to just be there?

“How are the children?” she asked, as we sipped our very flat whites.

The two adults have new jobs, solid friendships and good souls — the latter being the only important hope of parents. The youngest, like all five-year-olds, is an antidote for weary cynicism and a cause for hope renewed.

“Good,” I summarise, “we’re moving house soon, so things are even more chaotic than usual.” We will be closer to her now.

She nods without comment, smiles and looks out over the bright ocean to the horizon. It seems like she sees things out there that I cannot — not yet anyway.

Packing up a house is a humbling process. It puts a spotlight on your trove of retained nonsense. All your worn and torn, faded ornaments on display — like standing naked in front of a mirror under fluorescent light.

I blame Mum’s father for my hoarding tendency. He scolded me once, in tones that people born in 1898 thought reasonable, for putting a piece of wood in the bin.

“You never know when you might need that!” rings in my ears to this day.

Perhaps to Grandad’s credit though, I still have my father’s woodworking tools and some photos of Dad — 20 years younger than I am now — looking cheekily sideways at the camera, as if he can see me looking back in time.

And here is Mum, young and carefree in black and white — dressed up for a dance. She’s still there, in the face of this old woman gazing far out to sea, into the thickening mist.

She enjoys her memories melded together now, rather than as individual items.

At every opportunity our impatient culture implies that the elderly are overstaying their time, that they’re hardly worth the bother. As if the rest of us are busily making huge contributions to society.

As if our homogenous meetings, TV bingeing and reply-all emails are so much more important than grabbing a coffee by the beach with someone who loves you — with someone that you love.

Small keepsakes, talismans of the past, provide foundation. Maybe my kids will pause one day over a fading photograph of young me, tucked inside a book, long after I have left across the shining sea.

I’ll be winking at them, sending them my love.