Back to the Innocence
It's been a fine life. Whoever would have thought it could stretch so far? Men and women far more deserving of this great bounty of his have already fallen long by the wayside. It's important to him not to take that too lightly. Each day must be held heavy in cupped hands, as the glimmering sand of his years slips on and on, glorious sunsets and days watching the waves and afternoons holding hands stretching back and back for decades. It's a shame that the younger ones don't understand that about him, seeing his pleasure in small things as foolhardiness, or naïve impulse. This calm joy is the product of a life lived so long close to death; both the funerals of too many comrades, and the knowledge of his own mortality, which might have hung over a weaker man as a sentence.
His body is strong; given his status, it ought to be. And yet it is weak. His eyesight is keen, and his muscles powerful, but it's a house of cards, and the slightest unlucky breeze can tear the ground away from his feet, and throw billowing shadows across his vision, leaving him at the mercy of the demons he battles. But even on days when his body fails him, and he is confined to his chambers, he stays close to the little window, listening to the petty fights of his division members, and the trout leaping in the sun-blessed lake. On these days he hopes most of all to hear the shouts of children. Wouldn't it be grand to have some for himself! Such a shame, as they used to say over his head, such a shame that he'll never be able to. They'd never expected him to live so long in the first place.
He's learned now to ignore everybody else's predictions and warnings. He knows his own body, and he'll be ready when the time comes. A life fully lived, not just through himself, but through his writing, his fighting, and the many, many boys and girls he has trained. Some of whom, even now, he knows he will outlive. And it is that fact alone which ever makes him feel his age.