I have news for you. Once you reach 80, everyone wants to carry your baggage and help you up the steps. If you forget your name, just say, “I’m eighty”.
At 70 people are mad at you for everything. At 80 you have a perfect excuse no matter what you do. If you act foolishly, it’s your second childhood or just softening of the brain. Being 70 is no fun at all. At that age they expect you to retire to a house in Florida and complain about your arteries (they used to call it lumbago). At 80, everyone is surprised that you are still alive. They treat you with respect for just having lived that long, and they seem shocked that you can walk and talk seriously.
So, please folks, try to make it ’til you’re 80! It’s the best time of life. People forgive you for anything. Don’t die, just say the following prayer.
Today dear Lord, I am 80, and there isn’t much I haven’t done. Please let me live until I’m 81.
There are other things that I want to do, let me hang on until I’m 82?
And there’s still so much I want to see, how about hanging around till I’m 83?
The world is changing so very fast, there’s so much more in store! I’d like very much to live until I’m 84.
And if by then I’m still alive, do you reckon I could just hang around until I’m 85.
More planes will be up in the air, more people traveling everywhere.
So I’d just like to stick and mix to see what’s happening when I’m 86.
Lord, you’ve been so good to me, must be nice in heaven.
But I’d really like to hang around until I’m 87.
I know by then I won’t be fast and sometimes I’ll be late.
But even so, it would be nice, to be around at 88.
By then I’ve seen so many things and had a good old time.
So I’m sure that I’ll be ready, to leave at 89.
When you’re old everything hurts and what doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work. The gleam in your eye is from the sun hitting your trifocals. Your little black book contains only names ending in M.D. You turn out the lights for economic not romantic reasons. You sit in a rocking chair and can’t get it going. Your knees buckle and your belt won’t. You burn midnight oil after 9 p.m. Your back goes out more often than you do. Your house is too big and your medicine cabinet too small.
Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth. . . but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. . . for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).