Yesterday I read Diana Athill’s memoir Somewhere Towards the End, her treatise on what life has brought to her as she approaches the end of it (she is now ninety-one years old). The initial chapters on the waxing and waning of sexual desire and activity made me frown; I do not want to read a book about anyone’s sex life. But her engaging writing — conversational, clear, and amiable –  made me continue on and I was justly rewarded.  I loved this book.  Athill is a woman who understands herself, foibles, weaknesses, and strengths, and strives to understand the people and the moments of her life that have shaped her.  She shares her stories, thoughts, and conclusions freely, creating almost a manual for living.  It is a manual that comes not with instructions but with illustrations from one life’s passage and its coming conclusion.

“Passage” is the key word: Athill demonstrates that life flows inexorably forward and that the best we can do is to move with it, to continue on because even for the very old, new and unexpected events can occur.  Moments, even years, of pain can inflict themselves (for Athill, writing proved to be her best therapy for moving beyond the pain) but beauty comes again and again, to encourage, distract, enliven, or inspire.

For Athill, it is imperative that each individual find and define what it is that they enjoy, and not deny what it is that makes life interesting: for her brother, it was boating, for her mother, it was gardening, for Athill, it has been reading and writing, although the writing came late in life (there is no deadline by when anything must occur, cautions Athill: life can bring opportunity at any time).  The activity or job or interest is important only in how it brings out the best in you: it need not be grand or important to the world or great in the eyes of others, just satisfying to yourself. Athill says of her aging brother, “What filled him as death approached …was grief at having to say goodbye to what he could never have enough of.“  That is what life should be all about: filling our moments with all the people and interests and activities that we can never have enough of.  Life is painful but fulfillment has never been found in enduring what hurts or bores or depresses: it is found in discovering joy.  The last words Athill’s mother spoke were about a drive she had just taken through the country: “It was divine.”  Who could wish for better final words, or feelings?

For me this year of reading books has had many purposes, with new ones discovered along the way.  I began looking for an escape from the harrowing loss of my sister and for a defining purpose to my life.  I’ve learned that I can never evolve out of the grieving but that it is absorbed into who I am, and that there is no one purpose to life other than filling it with commitment to whatever I do and to whomever I do it with.  Athill confirms so much of what I’ve discovered through my reading, and she offers fresh and unique insight into (and support of) my goals of gratitude, involvement, change, and always anticipating with open arms the unexpected.  Life isn’t over until its over, and there are new opportunities for connection and happiness and surprise in every stage of life.

Athill finishes her wonderful book by listing the three advantages of old age:  first, unexpectedness (although I argue this is present in every stage of life, but perhaps only fully appreciated as we get older); second, the freedom from feeling that everything matters so very much: “none of it mattered at the deepest level, so that all of it could be taken lightly.” There was “no event [that] could be so crucial to my self-esteem in quite the same way anymore, and that was strangely liberating.“  With a limited time period left, Athill finds that “thrilling possibilities” of a new life, new career, or new love may have waned but at the same time, such waning “allowed  experiences to be enjoyable in an uncomplicated way — to be simply fun.“  As a person still in her forties, and possibly a long life ahead but possibly not, I have come to see that what I do is, ultimately, not all that important.  Better that I make damn sure that my life is enjoyable and engaging (and yes, fun) and that I work to ensure the passage of something good to someone else through love, friendship, or knowledge.

The third advantage of old age listed by Athill is that she no longer suffers from shyness.  This “advantage” was a letdown for me -  huh?  is that wisdom? — but then I realized that for Athill the change away from shyness was radical, personal and deep.  Her point is that change of almost any kind is possible at any age.  That is wisdom, and a credo to live by, one of hope and of vitality.  We can continue changing our whole lives.  Somewhere Towards the End shows us how, and why.