The pope, who on Monday hits the 10-year mark in his pontificate, shows the potential of life at 86 in the modern world. He travels to conflict-torn countries, gives speeches to full stadiums and said he feels no reason to give up the job anytime soon.
But 86 can be fragile, unforgiving. Francis has had to significantly slow his pace. He has persistent knee pain and requires a wheelchair. He takes a daily nap.The hardest thing about this age, many 86-year-olds say, is not knowing much time you have left. Thesay five, six years on average. But about 8 percent don’t even make it to 87. Only half make it to 91. In Italy, one of the grayest societies on earth, fewer than in 1 in 30 people are 86 or older.
Like many 86-year-olds, Francis’s activities are often assessed in the context of his age. No longer is he just the pope traveling to the Democratic Republic of Congo; he is. Across the church, bishops a full decade younger are being ushered by rule into retirement. On his trips, in his meetings, Francis is now almost always the oldest person in the room. And whatever doubts come about his capabilities, they are invariably generated by those who are younger.
“You cannot deny that [death] is threatening,” said Father Franco Imoda, 86, a Jesuit priest who still leads the board of education at a Rome high school.“I’m afraid of it,” said Nadia Gindy, 86, a retired English professor in Cairo. She dropped her voice as if to share a secret: The young presume the very old come to terms naturally with the end, but it doesn’t necessarily work like that. She has grandchildren to be with, she said. Theater shows and operas to attend.
In Athens, Loucas Christophorou, a nuclear scientist, is writing his 39th book while maintaining an active position in Greece’s national research academy and — like many scientists and academics — says he plans to work until the “very end.”In northeastern Nigeria, Shuaibu Mohammed — married three times, including now to a 30-year-old — still works as a carpenter, helping to support a sprawling family that includes the youngest of his 28 children, age 5.But 86 can also be painful.
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