by magkelly » Wed Jul 04, 2012 3:21 am
My Dad is a fan and just a year older. (My parents were older parents when they had me. I'm the last of the bunch of kids and I came a bit later than the rest.) It made me blink a bit when Griffith died. Him too I think. I think he thought Griffith was a bit older than he was, or maybe he forgot he is basically that age too for a second, smile. That's the thing when you get that far up there the people your age start dropping and suddenly you realize that you're getting "that" old and it kind of freaks you out every now and again. In this case him being such a fan so into Mayberry and Matlock et all it made me think hard for a sec and dwell on the fact that Dad really isn't going to be around forever. When you're a kid you think your parents are immortal and no matter how much your mind logically realizes they're not somehow when it does happen that you finally lose them it always hits very hard. I think that's when most of us realize our own mortality too. My Dad tends to ignore his age and seldom acts like an older person unless he's really feeling ill. But when people his age die sometimes it can make him think a bit harder about his own mortality. Most of the time I think he just lives his life as though he had 50 years left but when this happens I think it slows him down mentally for just a while...