This month’s Mature Content, a column about aging and life from the perspectives of older people, has been hard to write. Though I dislike admitting it, it’s because I’d rather not face what I’ve been dreaming about most nights and thinking every morning, in that middle space between being asleep and being awake: the number 85.

Eighty-five! That’s when my father stopped living, though he continued existing for another four years. He sold his business at 80, then worked part-time for the new owner for two more years. He took what turned out to be his final European trip when he was 84. Though it probably wasn’t safe, he drove his car around Manhattan and took an occasional trip into the countryside until he was 85. Then, Dr. Stein finally found the courage to tell him what he should have been told five years earlier, and Dad stopped living.

Dad was the last of his friends to keep a car in midtown Manhattan, where garage space costs as much as a studio apartment and finding on-street parking can take hours. He parked on-street to save money, and, since he always enjoyed driving, why not drive around looking for parking spaces? It was something to do, and the car was important. Several days each week, my mother or one of their friends would need a ride to that special delicatessen, a bakery or a cardiologist. Because he had his Oldsmobile, Dad provided it. The Olds also transported Mom and Dad to visit Uncle Walter, who was dying of ALS in New Jersey. It took friends to lunch at garden restaurants in Westchester and to Catskills Hotels for long weekends. That Olds wasn’t just transportation. It infused Dad’s life with purpose.

We spoke soon after his 85th birthday, after Dr. Stein had done what had to be done. “Hi, Dad. How are you?” It was the usual casual greeting, but the answer wasn’t casual. “Physically, I’m okay, but life is hell when you don’t have any goals.” He was right, of course. Life without purpose is hellish at any age. Whether we’re 25 or 85, we need to be driving something — a family, a career, a garden, a monthly newspaper column, towards something.

Once he stopped driving, Dad became increasingly depressed, seeming to almost welcome his increasing dementia. Dropping out mentally and emotionally probably relieved his depression. Once, he pretty much told me exactly that. “You know, it isn’t bad, being dopey.” No kidding, he really said that.

By the time you read this, I’ll be on a road trip to California, visiting great-grandchildren. Will it be my final road trip? Like dad, I’ve always enjoyed driving. He began teaching me when I was eight. (That’s not a typo.) Three months from now, on my 85th birthday, I’ll be in Thailand. Will it be my last overseas trip? I still hope to visit some of Europe’s great opera houses, but I’ll be 85 in January.

Thanks to a physically easy life, never smoking, a healthy diet, modern medicine and dumb luck, I’m in much better shape than Dad was at eighty-five, but I’m already taking a daily Fountain-of-Youth cocktail that includes ten pills from eight prescriptions, not counting vitamins and supplements. Healthy lifestyle, modern medicine and dumb luck can only do so much. Eighty-five scares me.

Then, there’s my mother-in-law. As she aged, she used to say, “I don’t buy green bananas.” But she drove until she was 95 (though she probably should not have been licensed at any age), and she lived happily to the age of 103 because she found ways to adapt to her increasing limitations. In spite of what she said, she did buy green bananas. I know, because I often drove her to the store during those last 8 years. Sadly, Dad didn’t adapt the way she did. He and his friends could have used taxis and limos, but he never “gave up” driving. He just didn’t do it anymore.

Dad’s Olds has been gone for decades, but I think of him every time I push start on my Honda hybrid, fully equipped to help older drivers be safer. Now it’s my turn at the wheel, eyes on the horizon, weaving my way through the years to some final destination. I don’t know how far I’ll get, but hey, the road ahead still stretches further than I can see, and with the grace of another green light or two before that final red, there’s no knowing when the end is.

As I said, we all need to drive something to somewhere because life without goals is hellish at any age. I guess I’ll keep driving until I’m there and hope that when I put it in park for the last time, someone else will take the wheel. And I’ll think of my mother-in-law every time I buy bananas. I bought some yesterday. They were green. So far, so good.

Mature Content is a monthly feature from Age-Friendly Carbondale.