Back in March I called an old friend to wish her a happy birthday. Lorry lives in Cataumet, a small bayside town on Cape Cod with a well-protected harbor. Her voice was clear and her sense of humor fully operational. She was having a good time. She is still living in the waterfront cottage she and her late husband were expanding when I met them in 1969.
As birthdays go, hers was a truly big one. She is now 100 years old.
At 100, Lorry has joined the fastest growing age group in America. According to a recent report from the Pew Foundation, the number of centenarians in the U.S., now just over 100,000, is expected to reach nearly 422,000 by 2054. To put that number in some perspective, 422,000 is larger than the current population of Oakland (420,233) and a good deal larger than Orlando, the home of Disney World (329,429) or Anaheim, the home of Disneyland (341,817).
It bogles me that she was 45 when I met her, younger than any of her four children are today. Then again, it’s also weird to think that I was 28 at the time and still had hair to comb.
All chronological strangeness aside, Lorry has had the opportunity to drink more deeply from the Cup of Life than most of us. I didn’t have a chance to ask her what she thought of Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel. If the name doesn’t ring a bell for you, he’s the fellow who wrote “Why I Hope to Die at 75” for the Atlantic Monthly nearly 10 years ago. (For better or worse, the article is behind the paywall at the Atlantic, so you’d have to spend some money to learn why.)
For the record: Dr. Emanuel explained that all the main events in life would be complete by age 75 so he would, pretty much, be done with life. To me, that spells achievement-addiction and a truly grotesque case of workaholism. Really, it’s OK to kick back and just savor breathing. He could learn a lot, just as I have, from our dog but our aged Shih Tzu isn’t available for consultations.
Lorry, thankfully, is a reasonable and normal human. She is delighted to have had the years from 75 to 100. The question for the rest of us is how close we’ll get to enjoying the same wonderful gift.
However it goes, we’re talking about factors of sooner or later. The good news is that while many of the “sooners” were chosen for us, we have a big basket of “laters” from which to choose.
Choose well, live long.
Related columns:
Scott Burns, “Why It’s a Good Thing to Live Beyond Age 75,” 11/8/2015: https://scottburns.com/why-its-a-good-thing-to-live-beyond-age-75/
Scott Burns, “Measuring the Cup of Life, Another Way,” 3/30/2014: https://scottburns.com/measuring-longevity-another-way/
Scott Burns, “The Hedonic Clock,” 10/26/2014: https://scottburns.com/the-hedonic-clock/
Scott Burns, “The Good Life Is Also a Long Life,” 1/27/2012: https://scottburns.com/the-good-life-is-also-a-long-life/
Scott Burns, “Enlarging the Cup of Life,” 12/25/2016: https://scottburns.com/enlarging-the-cup-of-life/
Scott Burns, “The Cup of Life, Revisited,” 3/20/2020: https://scottburns.com/the-cup-of-life-revisited/
Scott Burns, “The Longevity of the Nerds ( Continued),” 6/4/2022: https://scottburns.com/nerds-are-living-longer-witness-the-mit-class-of-1962/
Sources and References:
Katherine Schaeffer, “US Centenarian Population Is Projected to Quadruple over the Next 30 Years,” 01/09/2024: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/01/09/us-centenarian-population-is-projected-to-quadruple-over-the-next-30-years/
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, “Why I Hope to Die at 75,” 10/2014: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/
World Population Review: 200 Largest Cities in the U.S.: https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities
U.S. Life Tables, 2021, 11/07/2023: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr72/nvsr72-12.pdf
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(c) Scott Burns, 2024