Want to be vibrantly alive in your 90s? Here’s how my dad does it

My father told me recently that he is not long for this world.

He asked me to track down a particular book on the subject of what happens to the mind and body as the end approaches, which, thankfully, appears to be out of print.

Still, in mid-February I dutifully boarded a flight from Chicago headed for London, the first leg of a journey that would end in Florence, Italy, where my father lives, to celebrate his 94th birthday.

Here’s the thing about Papa: Like many Italians, he has a flair for the melodramatic.

He’s been warning of his imminent passing for at least the past 10 years. He remains, though, among the most alive human beings I have ever met.

Papa talks to everyone: the butcher, the barista at his favorite coffee bar, a professor of Renaissance literature, a complete stranger one quarter his age. These aren’t people merely humoring an old man; he flashes his hazel eyes — speaking of his youth on Capri, the craggy island jutting from the turquoise waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea, or perhaps the 15th-century mill in Southwest England he renovated in the 1980s — and his listeners are entranced. Much the same way when years before, with microphone in hand, he charmed American, Australian and South African passengers as their tour director on coaches crisscrossing Europe.

When I arrived in Porta Romana, his neighborhood in Florence, a few days before his birthday, I found Papa’s face a little more creased, and he walked with a cane now (il bastone, in Italian). But he was still spritzed with expensive Italian cologne, still wearing cashmere sweaters and still driving — less terrifying these days because he no longer tears the wrong way down one-way streets when he’s in a hurry.

And he still gives orders he expects me to obey.

“I want you to give a speech for my birthday — in Italian,” he said.

“Yes, Papa,” I replied, even though I am not fluent.

Sadly, I cannot report my father survives only on pasta and wine (although he drinks at least a glass daily). He begins each morning with a sludgy concoction of ground-up pumpkin, flax, chia seeds and honey, all swirled into yogurt. He raves, too, about the medicinal powers of “curcuma” (turmeric).

On the morning of his birthday, Feb. 19, Papa hobbled down the hill, through a 14th-century stone gate (a remnant of the great defensive wall that at one time surrounded Florence) and stepped into his favorite coffee bar. Eliza, the barista, began a round of the Italian version of Happy Birthday, “Tanti auguri a te …”

Papa loved the attention. His 88-year-old friend Massimo arrived. So did Francesco, who is 80.

A little later, we headed to a local osteria. It was packed. So we shared a table with strangers, a man and woman in their early 30s. Soon, the man had his arm around Papa. I told the restaurant owner it was my father’s birthday. A slice of cake with a candle on top arrived. Another round of “Tanti auguri.” Like a conductor, Papa directed the hundred or so people in the restaurant.

Later that night, there was a small gathering of friends at the condominium my father shares with my stepmother, Jane. One friend, Fabio, dressed up as a university professor and, with a pie chart, tried to explain the secret to my father’s abundant good health. The largest slices of pie: curiosity, turmeric and sex.

I talked about Papa’s awful driving, his total lack of inhibition. A few years ago, along the Chicago River, he heard a James Brown song he likes and began to dance, all by himself as dozens of strangers strolled by.

“E mamma mia, lui piaceva proprio tanto parlare!” I said, explaining how my father adores talking.

I shared the story of how as a little kid living in London, I desperately needed to get home to pee. My father heard me but then spent the next half hour talking to a man in an antiques shop. He had to carry me home, pants wet, on his shoulders.

Papa took it all in — eyebrows raised and arms flung out in mock disbelief — but he knew it was all true.

On another evening, a couple of nights before I headed back to Chicago, we were having dinner with friends. Papa heard a clattering Latin rhythm. He rose to his feet, cell phone in one hand and cane in the other, and he started to dance, hips swiveling. He shifted to a stuttering, creaky step — mocking the expectations of old age.

Papa told me on this trip he doesn’t believe in life after death. I don’t know if he’s right. But I know Papa is leaving nothing to chance — living his life completely until his very last breath.