Trophy Years.

June 1st was Madaraka Day, when we mark Kenya attaining self-rule from British colonial rule. We Kenyans like public holidays, especially when they fall on a Friday or Monday. That gives us a nice, long weekend. My son had been having a dry cough, so I took him to our local AAR clinic to be checked. It was a polite day, and there was no queue at the clinic, which was a good thing. I even bumped into my pal there, and we caught up kiasi.

Kijana’s throat was clear, so the doctor gave him some antihistamines. On our way out, we stopped at the supermarket to buy some batteries for his sister’s science project. She was required to make an electric circuit with a buzzer and a light. I remember having similar projects in primary school, way back. It makes me wonder how different 8-4-4 is from these other school systems that our kids are in. Anyway, I digress.

As we headed back to the car, I saw a mzee who looked familiar. He was walking slowly ahead of us, so we passed him. I recognized him as my dad’s former colleague at the bank from many years ago, when we were growing up. I have seen him a few times in our neighborhood taking a walk to keep fit or heading to the shops. He’s clearly retired, and, in my view, taking life easy. But I couldn’t help but wonder what has kept him busy for the more than twenty years since he and my dad left the bank. Maybe he does have something that occupies him in the week to keep those mental juices flowing. I hope he does.

Another friend of mine is about to turn ninety. He retired from government work more than thirty years ago. I have kept in touch with him occasionally and he’s in fairly good health. In my view, he has lived a stress-free life because besides church meetings and services on Sunday, he spends the rest of the week at home catching up with the gazeti and the news on TV. I have often wondered how his life would have been, had he taken on another career after retirement—one that suited his experience and interests.

A former neighbor comes to mind while on this line of thought. He is a retired advocate, and I think his intellectual release was on the estate WhatsApp group. A resident would bring up a simple housekeeping issue or incident, and this mzee would always turn it into a logical and complicated issue that often ended up in an argument. By the time we were moving out of that court, he had been kicked out of the group for being a nuisance. Brains combined with experience do not do well when idle. In fact, they can become destructive to ourselves and others. That’s why we need to have a plan for our old age, not just for midlife.

Then, I remember my dearly departed mzungu father, Mike Eldon. ‘Kupumzika ni mbinguni’ was his slogan. Well, he didn’t say that exactly, but he lived it. He ran his weekly column in the Business Daily until the last moments of his life. I remember chatting with him once when he was admitted in the hospital. I asked him what he was thinking, and he said he wanted to finish his article for that week before they gave him drugs to knock him out. Not too long after that, he posted on social media that he was happy to join Strathmore Business School as adjunct faculty. Yaani, this was a mzee who was eighty, with his health failing—and yet, there he was, excited to start a new job. I asked him how he maintained that kind of drive. His response has stayed with me ever since, and I intend to use it fully: “I may not have much control of my body, but I have control over my mind”. That was a mic drop moment for me right there.

Folks, looking at those four wazees, who would you like to be? For me, I choose my mzungu father, Mike. I would be bothered by many healthy years of doing little but just chilling and counting the days. Yes, at that age, you are allowed not to be a busybody, but you should be a moving body—intellectual, and with a mission in life. Wisdom is in short supply in this world, and we need our seniors to dispense it in their own unique way.

Life expectancy has increased, thanks to medicine. We are living longer now, and that means that even at fifty, health allowing, many of us will have twenty or even thirty years of productivity ahead. We need to pay attention and plan for those years the same way our folks planned for their so-called retirement. I prefer reTYREment instead. Getting  a new set if tyres for a new trip of life.

I came across an article from Barbara Waxman: ‘Anti-aging points you backward, life design points you forward.’ She speaks on the part of life that’s beyond elderhood—a decade beyond uzee that we need to plan for. What do you do when life gives you bonus years? Yes, health challenges and bereavements are common at this phase of life. Barbara says, “But we constantly fail to account for what increases: the depth of our wisdom, the quality of our connections, a capacity for purpose, and even a sense of joy that compounds with time.”

Folks, we’ve all been warned not to enter retirement without a financial plan. But beyond retirement are the trophy years. And for those fortunate enough to live that long, it would be best to have a plan, too. Our outlook shifts from, ‘How do I avoid aging?’ to ‘How do I design my life so that I age well and thrive?” And that’s how we finish strong. For many of my peers, the trophy years might seem far kidogo, but maybe we should plan our midlife with the trophy years in view. Hopefully, that will make the later transition smoother.

Live long, folks, but also live purposefully.