A crucial age

People say that the years between age 70 and 80 are the crucial ones. I was 76 in November last year. So I have to live with it. The Bible gives the following remarks: Seventy years is all we have, eighty years if we are strong; yet all they bring us is trouble and sorrow; life is soon over and we are gone.

I vividly remember that when I was a pupil of a Dutch elementary school, my Dutch teacher used to point at me and jokingly say: Stof zijt gij en tot stof zult gij ook wederkeren (Dust you are and to dust you will return).

When we are in our seventies I think it is necessary that we adopt a firm attitude that some day we have to depart from this world to go to the world beyond. A relative of mine said: When that time comes, I prefer to be cremated, so that I do not become a nuisance to my children, because when a city is expanding, even cemeteries will not be spared and will be taken over by the municipal administration. The contents of the graves will be put together and cremated, or if a relative of the deceased wants to take care of the remains himself, he will have to bear all the relevant expenses also.

A. DJUANA

Jakarta