In half an hour, I'm having coffee with a friend who is closing in on his 80th year. He's a physician I respected back in the days when I was the voice in the middle of the night requesting his help in caring for a patient - always kind and good-humored, never shot the messenger.
I've gotten to know him in a new light since he entered retirement and became a part-timer in a pool of mostly retirees who works for the hospital-adjacent organization I joined a couple of years ago.
He's got no shortage of opinions, is free with warnings regarding the direction that the business of medicine is headed, and is generous in sharing personal anecdotes cautioning me on how to devote my time during these final years when my kids are at home.
He's one of a number of intergenerational friendships I've accumulated over my career. There's a now-retired hospital administrator I met while serving almost a decade on the Bioethics Committee together. We take turns treating to lunch at local eateries in town, always ending in a warm embrace. We may serve together on the board of a local nonprofit when I become an empty nester.
There's my mentor from medical school, then a tenured professor of medicine who had successfully introduced palliative care and hospice to the academic institution where I trained, now retired and dealing with the betrayals of the body. It's hard to hear him struggle, but he ends our monthly phone calls by letting me know he loves me.
There's a former residency professor, a recipient of numerous teaching awards. We bonded with another classmate sharing a car to a free clinic in Tijuana for his church - three different faiths brought together who relished the uncovering experienced on that long drive. Our twice yearly check-ins grow more frequent as we feel our age.
Another professor from residency, whose mother was an elementary school teacher for my siblings in our smaller-than-it-seems hometown, has always been in an "appears younger than stated age" category. His travel adventures, passion for personal finance, and deep comfort with his nerdiness led me to recognize him as a kindred spirit from the moment he interviewed me as a fourth year medical student. We maintain the friendship through phone calls, and cross paths every few years despite residing in different states.
Why are so many older folks swelling the ranks of my friendships? For starters, I just plain like their company - these are individuals who'd be interesting to me no matter their age.
Having accepted that, there's a lot to learn from previewing a road I hope to be lucky enough to travel, and finding role models who traveled it in style.
There's a vacancy left from the death of my father.
There's the unique opportunity to spend time with people who were incredibly career-oriented to understand how they've reinvented an identity when they left their professional network behind.
There's also a range of role models demonstrating a spectrum of maintenance practices - who cared for body, who jumped into philanthropy and civic-minded projects, who continued to work after retirement - not for the income, but for the inherent pleasure they take in building something.
Has the number of intergenerational friendships you maintain increased over the course of your adult life?