The older we get, the more often we say goodbye. The question is how we choose to live in between.

Welcome to OOPS, my occasional reflections on the business of getting older — what catches me by surprise, what makes me think, and what seems to matter more with each passing year.

My friend was cremated yesterday. We had known each other for nearly twenty years, and she was my age.

Her memorial service was joyful, with more than a hundred people gathered in the church where she used to volunteer, including family who had flown in from all over the world. It was a home-grown event: friends from the church read, spoke about how much she meant to them, and organised lunch afterwards.

Over the last few years I’ve realised that I’ve been attending more funerals, most for much-loved friends and family members — people who were part of my life and who I miss.

“The older we get, the more often we say goodbye.”

So how do you live when you can see the end of your life drawing nearer? I remember my doughty father-in-law, when he was in his nineties, saying that he had outlived all his friends. It doesn’t feel like that yet, but I can see a time not too far ahead when it may become more true.

My father retired early because of health problems and then seemed to give up. He simply sat and waited for death to catch up with him, and that always seemed to me such a waste of the years he still had after retiring.

For me, life is becoming more precious as my own ending draws closer. Jack and I have a bucket list of things we want to do while our health holds up, from long-haul adventures to learning new skills. But love and purpose feel even more important: paying attention to friendships, spending time with our children and grandchildren, giving time to volunteering, and tackling injustices like ageism.

At my mum’s memorial service, a close friend wrote that hers had been “a life well lived”. I would like people to be able to say that of me.

So there is still some living to get on with.