what old age is really like / illusion & despair

Roy R. Behrens, Automaton (©2026), digital collage

Doris Grumbach in "What Old Age Is Really Like" in The New York Times (I November 1998), Op Ed Section—

The most lamentable loss in the elderly spirit is the erosion of hope. The climate of the old country is pessimism. Oscar Wilde's mother wrote: "Life is agony and hope, illusion and despair, all commingled, but despair outlasts all."