Getting old seems to take on an it can’t happen here kind of front in many people’s minds. We imagine ourselves at our best age, forever. We think we are invincible. We see the old classmate from grade school, high school, or college and think, Boy, do they look old. Thank God that hasn’t happened to me, while our mirrors hold witness of our aging bodies, the truth whispering at us from the medications we take, the creams we use, and the clothes we wear.
The Secret Diary of Hendrick Groen, 83 ¼ Years Old whose author is anonymous or Hendrik Groen or Peter de Smet, if Goodreads is to be trusted, was not what I expected. Had I known what I was getting myself into, I might not have read it.
Thank goodness I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.
This book is a 378-page glimpse into what it’s like to be in your eighties, living in a retirement home, each day positing if perhaps it will be your or one of your friends’ last.
This book was refreshing and heart breaking, inspiring and infuriating. It puts out there what we already know: The elderly are often neglected and overlooked. But it isn’t done in a please feel sorry for us way, but more in a it’s time we learn how to treat people of all ages and abilities way.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“Life is a five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle with no picture to follow.”
“As long as there are plans, there’s life.”
“We haven’t much time left, yet we have all the time in the world.
We should be in a hurry, but have almost nothing left that’s worth hurrying for.”
“Old age and impatience…are on intimate terms.”
Rating: 4/5 stars
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