I had been up this morning for an hour already, and was off on my morning walk, listening to music, before I realized what day it was. August 22. It’s been three years today since my father died, and slightly more than one full year since we sold our family home and were last at the lake and in the rural area where I grew up.

How does one adjust to these things? Well, you just do. Losing a parent, especially at such an advanced age (for him and for me, actually) feels natural, unlike the loss of a partner or, worst of all, a child. What was strange about losing my father, and my husband’s father, both of whom lived to their late 90s, in fairly good health and mental capacity, and with large intact personalities, was that they had been vibrantly present in our lives for so long it seemed impossible that they wouldn’t always be.

Of course, my father is still with me. Every time I finish one of these long, vigorous morning walks, and return home sweaty and a bit achy, I say, “OK, Dad, I did it — I’m still moving.” My father lived according to a theology of exercise. Royal Canadian Air Force exercises every morning, jogging before anyone else was doing it, competitive table tennis until his mid-90s supported by obsessive daily practice at a table he had outfitted with an automatic ball return and an adjustable mechanism that served balls at him. I was never the athlete he was, but he instilled a belief that I needed to keep my body moving and active. I also inherited his arthritis, which isn’t as bad as what he suffered from, but I can vouch for the fact that moving makes it better. Dad had a high-mileage body that he used pretty hard. Two knee replacements and one hip later, he was grateful for modern medicine’s ability to keep him going, but his own determination and stubbornness about moving in spite of pain were even bigger factors.

By contrast, my father-in-law had a low-mileage body. He never exercised except for a series of facial exercises he insisted kept wrinkles at bay; at 88 he decided for the first time in his life to mow a lawn and, halfway through, felt chest pains that landed him in the ER and eventually led to bypass surgery. His philosophy of doing the most mental work and the least physical work proved to be just as effective for him, in terms of longevity, as my father’s opposite path. He was round; my father was extremely thin though they both liked to eat. My father-in-law never drank; dad had a cocktail every night of his life. My father-in-law was optimistic and cheerful, quite contented with his books and writing and an audience of students or parishioners; he wasn’t handy at all and rather mystified by those who were. My dad loved to fix things, was extroverted, competitive, and funny, and needed people around all the time, but he tended to be inwardly pessimistic and often negative; he rarely if ever read a book. Totally different metabolisms, totally different approaches to caring for their bodies and their spirits.

I think about them both as I too grow older. My father-in-law was much more philosophical about the process of aging, accepting the inevitable losses and diminishments with grace and humor, while my father fought against them tooth and nail. The former gave up his car almost ten years before he died at 99 because he felt he could no longer drive safely; my father insisted on driving until the last four months of his 97 years. Socially and physically, I’m more like my own father, but when I get negative or depressed about growing older, I try to remember how my father-in-law did it.

Both of them became outliers, living so long, and one secret to their longevity was that they both kept pushing themselves to learn, improve, and do creative things — just in very different areas of their lives. In his last decade, in addition to writing essays and books, my father-in-law started making elaborate collages from pictures in news magazines. These imaginative and highly creative images were often comments on political events, and he sometimes sent them along with the weekly letter he wrote to President Clinton. Even after retiring from teaching and the ministry, he kept accepting supply-preaching gigs in Unitarian Universalist churches in the area well into his 90s. My father was an excellent woodworker, and in his later years used some of those skills to become good at antique clock repair. He was a fine natural musician and enjoyed music all his life; he’d be amused and happy to know I’ve taken up the flute again, and when I do my daily practice I’m quite aware that my perseverance was learned from him, and that whatever natural talent I have was his gift too.

They both kept cultivating friendships that included younger people. In spite of his insistence, on finally moving into assisted living, that he was going to eat alone and keep to his room and his books, my father-in-law ended up with a number of friends at his residence, some of whom became very close with him, and he always enjoyed our weekly lunches together as well as family gatherings on holidays and anniversaries, often offering to cook something — sometimes a little too creatively — for the occasion.

My father, once he found a new partner two years after my mother’s death, moved from the lake to the nearby small city where she lived, and developed the social life I think he’d always wanted — playing golf and table tennis several times a week, going out to dinner with friends, having people over, and becoming integrated into his partner’s much-larger family of children and grandchildren.

We should all be so lucky — to live long lives, mostly free from debilitating illnesses or severe cognitive decline. But in reality, they both had physical problems, they were both pretty deaf, they both lost their wives first and yet managed to keep going for quite a long time.

Who knows what’s ahead? All we can count on is that there’s an end, and none of us can avoid it. But how we live until we get there, and with what attitude, is partially up to us. I’ve been glad just now that this anniversary gave me an opportunity to think not only about my own father, but my father-in-law, who I loved very much. They were an odd pair, opposite in so many ways, but more alike than I once thought in their insistence on living, continuing to develop themselves, and being present to each day.