We'Re Still Here

...en l'an soixante-dix de mon age... All the familiar names from our youth now belong to aged, unfamiliar faces. Even my own reflection startles as I pass the mirror hanging in the hall. Suddenly, we are old. And, although taken by surprise, we must accommodate reality -- perhaps convince ourselves how lucky we survivors are -- how much better that we wear these flaccid faces, these worn-out bodies, these aids and apparatuses, than to have ended while in almost-mint condition. But these are mere macabre, septuagenarian musings. So, let's forget all that! Turn up the music and hear us murmur, in weakly mordant, fatalistic, untriumphant chorus: "We're still here!"