Dear Deepa, I am young enough to be your son, so I cannot speak on old age, but I can speak a little on vulnerability.
I know a little of - what it is to experience a chronic illness, be the sole care taker for old and infirm family members, experience a rapid deceleration in income and physical freedom among other things. When life changes under us our life understanding requires modification. We have all been utterly vulnerable as babies, dependent on others for nearly everything - but there's not a single case of mental trauma from being born vulnerable, babies have the most blissful smiles when their basic needs are met. So we all know how to be vulnerable and yet blissful in our core, needing only the most basic things. It's the layers of cruft that we add on during the process of living that causes any suffering. Thanks to technology and innovation at least some people today have some kind of pension or passive income to keep them financially stable in old age, and there are advanced medical interventions for when diseases threaten life. This wasn't always the case, and so, for this we must be thankful, old age isn't as daunting as it once was. The inner experience of old age is then what I find threatens next - to be robbed of the sense pleasures for one. When the hearing isn't good enough for music or conversation, when the digestive system cannot tolerate one's favorite foods, when the eyes want to remain closed longer than they want to be open, when the brain is no longer sharp enough to enjoy sense inputs etc. Of course this doesn't happen all at once, or at all for some - but for many if they live into their 80s, this is what life becomes. Losing a life purpose is another - it's rather hard to keep chewing on the sugarcane when one doesn't know what more one can extract from it. Rather than have bleeding gums we stop chewing on the sugarcane - as in the case of your relative. Though some people may face this dilemma even on retirement from a career or bereavement. If I may rephrase your question "When does old age begin?" as "when does vulnerability and change begin?", then, was there ever a time when it wasn't so? To begin with the obvious, we are living on a piece of rock spinning and hurtling through space at an astonishing pace. We simply tune out the chaos and uncertainty of it, and imagine a life on our terms. Life is never on anyone's terms - ever - it's merely a dance - we don't set the tune, but we can learn to move gracefully with the music. There's always music, even in what may sound like cacophony - we only need to learn to move with it. Old age is just a new tempo to the tune. We must prepare for being vulnerable even if we are confident in our plans to secure the future. Not just in old age, but at any moment our life circumstances can be altered totally. If we can enjoy life only as long as things are under our control, we are usually in for trouble. We do significantly better if we hold life loose, not being attached to or identified with any job or passion or interest or person or health or wealth such that its disappearance wouldn't threaten. An individual identity is a bit like adding salt to food, a little goes a long way. Too much investment in a limited identity or preference will diminish life and dull intelligence. If our whole life is spent in acquiring labels - identities of father, son, boss, rich man, public intellectual, sports person etc. then when the labels are taken away there's often great suffering. This is what the wisdom teachings of this culture say, seek self realization - find who we are beyond the labels, beyond the limited identities. Happy Deepavali!
