SHORT STORY

Veronica's aunts grew old and died gracefully. Generally speaking. It was dignified. According to the book. No botox or hair dye. No joining a gym. No facelifts or bum tucks. Long white hair coiled into buns. Dresses and cardigans and stockings. Sensible shoes. A little face powder and rouge on special occasions. Just a touch of lippie. The siesta after lunch. A gentle daily constitution. A paddle in the sea on a hot hot day. An aspirin for headaches and a dose of Dr Williams pink pills for arthritis. The said they were setting an example for Veronica.

Rocking away in her rocking chair on the verandah, her Aunt Frances was still reading Saturday's paper on Monday when the neighbours noticed. She had “passed away”. They thought she was asleep, so peaceful they said. She wrote and published poetry, sketched, played her piano, was as mad as a hatter and a trial to the family. Growing older she spent her time avoiding her daughters, the medical profession, social workers and religious maniacs. She indulged her passion for jigsaw puzzles which she borrowed from the local library.

“Dying is an art” Veronica wrote in her diary at the time.

Penned long before Sylvia Plath gassed herself, coined the phrase and hogged the site on Google.

Growing older, Veronica's aunts slowly disconnected with their friends, their homes and their families. And themselves. Avoided do gooders and told the same story day after day. Strokes and heart attacks and senility sent them their separate ways. Gwen simply retired into her overgrown garden, a tiny woman who progressively became smaller. No children. No grandchildren. Just herself. On the day she turned 90 she wandered out of her garden to a bed in the nursing home round the corner and quietly sang nonsense to herself.

Not long before her death at 86 Veronica's Aunt Cecily was still rising occasionally at dawn to paint the sunrise. Making jam that never set. Bottling fruit. Swimming in the ocean in her pants and bras. Wandering by the river. Singing to herself. Quietly she slipped away in her sleep one night with her broken hip. So they said. The year before she died she still managed to make mouldy cream puffs for Christmas.

Veronica's mother began the dying process as soon as her father died. It took years. Her father had talked to her about dying and how this would be his last winter. That last year when his pub days were finally over, he shared quiet sherries with her mother in the evenings and watched TV. The day he died he drove to his favourite bush haunt to cut poles for his runner beans. He gently keeled over in the process.

It is different now says Veronica.

Conferences across the western world are planning the future needs for the elderly. Pre-baby boomers like me have been classed as the Silent Generation.

Silent? Hello! Me? Veronica Lazenby?

Along with the silent Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Nina Simone? Martin Sharp, Mirka Mora, Germaine Greer and Peter Booth? Come on! Who introduced sex and drugs and rock and roll? Equal pay? Television, computers, child care and karaoke? The mini skirt, the internet and valium? Post modern, op and video art? Graffiti? Well perhaps not the sex and drugs and graffiti.

Who walked on the moon? Well not me exactly says Veronica.

On Google Strauss and Howe define the Silent Generation as: pre 1946, an Artist/Adaptive generation....born during a Crisis, ... and spends old age in an Unraveling.

It sounds wonderful. Like a big party. Veronica says it sounds like academic crap. But perhaps Mick Jagger and crew know what it is all about. They are unraveling beautifully. But not dying Veronica points out.

Too old to dream, Veronica looks at her choices. Swim out into the ocean. Stock up with nembutal. Lie under a favourite tree. Stop eating. Wander into the wilderness. Slip into the river with stones in the pockets. Jump off a cliff.

Not allowed. Sorry.

Out come the SES, the Police, fire brigade, ambulance and helicopters, the spotter planes and the media. Splashed all over the TV and the internet. Families weep and feel guilty. Society raises its eyebrows. So does Veronica.

According to Google, Veronica tells me, governments across the world are funding middle aged bureaucrats to tell us that it is compulsory to join a gym, go for a swim, take a hearing test, walk a mile, have a medical test, do the crossword, eat vegetables, take up a hobby, help others, eat more protein, join a group, go to lectures, lose weight, put on weight, stop smoking, smile and generally to stop being a nuisance.

Quite frankly even thinking about that exhausts me says Veronica, I feel like dying. I am going to write to Mr Google and tell him I need proper advice on this matter. This getting old and dying thing. See what he comes up with.

Dear Mr Google

A young Dylan Thomas wrote to his father:

Do not go gentle into that good night,


Old age should burn and rave at close of day;


Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Good advice. But Dylan managed the raging and the raving and the dying without the unraveling and getting old. So not much help.

Leonard Cohen sings

Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey

I ache in the places where I used to play...

That's more like it. I know how he feels.

Growing old gracefully according to your many sites Mr Google, takes eight or ten steps. Have a facelift, dye the hair, get a fake tan, buy expensive vitamins, buy a new swimsuit with built in bosoms, invest in funeral insurance, become a grey nomad in your new eco van, buy the magic machine to keep you alive, purchase designer glasses, get a free makeover (with age defying ingredients costing the earth). Not to mention all those ads popping in between. Start running in the new coloured NIKES. If you fall over you shine in the dark. Take up YOGA in our new trimming lycra tights. Made for the young at heart. Honestly Mr Google. Have you seen what they look like on a 75 year old male body?

OMG Mr Google. I am not sure where the old or graceful comes in. But come on, its expensive too! Whew! And no mention of dying.

According to your many dying sites we have the right to die with dignity. Sorry. Give your friends on the doctor sites the opportunity and they whack you into hospital, by-pass you, swap your knees for plastic, stick needles and tubes in, patch this and patch that and send you home fit to die. The minute you talk about dying they interfere. Take my cousin Amy. Ready to go at 77. In the land of the bewildered at 79. New knees at 81. Hip replacement at 83. Triple bypass at 87. And there she silently sits day after day with all the other cardboard cutouts in their cardigans. Not much dignity there Mr Google. And no dying.

Come on Mr Google. Tell us the truth. Give us some proper advice. Let's face it. Growing old and dying is a real shit. Our eyesight fades. Our skin gets thin and bruises. Our muscles turn into wrinkled flesh. Our bones ache and get crumbly and break. We stumble and fall. We grow deaf. Our memory fades and gets befuddled. It's not much fun. Let me tell you there is a real art to this dying thing.

the wind is blowing

cold leaves in our windows

rattling our doors

hollowing our sky

our winters drag

time along the empty streets

and the night pauses

before the rain

blots out our stars

we all grow old

those who are left to grow old

So let's start the unraveling

get into the swing

dying is an art -

and all you can do is let Sylvia Plath hog the site with her sorry tale. And some punk group that wants to die early. It is just not good enough. We deserve honest advice on this matter.

Please rectify this Mr Google. You will need it someday.

Love from

Veronica Lazenby