In March of 1784 Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to a close friend in which he described what it was like for him to be 78 years old.

“I still exist,” he told Mrs. Mary Hewson, “and still enjoy some pleasure in that existence, though now in my seventy-ninth year. Yet I feel the infirmities of age come on so fast, and the building to need so many repairs, that in a little time the owner will find it cheaper to pull it down and build a new one.”

In an era when medicine was still primitive, you have to wonder what “repairs” might have entailed. In any event, Franklin would go on to live another six years, so the building would hold out for a considerable time against the deterioration that had begun to set in.

As a person who has just entered into his 79th year, I can identify with this extraordinarily creative man of the 18th century by acknowledging some of the infirmities of which he took note. Like him, I also find pleasure in living, though I would put this fact more strongly than he did. His word “some” suggests that he felt a strong admixture of distress.

This great Bostonian-turned-Philadelphian, by contrast with me, had exceeded the average life expectancy for people of his day by a wide margin. In 18th century America, I would guess that men lived not much beyond age 40 on average, though such a statistic would be skewed by a great many deaths in infancy and childhood.

By contrast, I have moved past the current average life expectancy of 75 or so for men. To catch up with women I will have to reach 80.

The longevity that we have come to expect in the 21st century ranks as one of the great achievements of modern times. Thanks to public health measures and to improvements in medicine, we look upon advanced years as something normal rather than exceptional.

True, the longevity of present-day Americans is often presented as a problem rather than a triumph. We read gloomy forecasts of insuperable economic and social crises that will be caused by the aging of the population. But the extension of human life, no matter what problems it brings, deserves to be seen as one of the major breakthroughs in history.

Still, all this does not make age 78 sound sexy. This number 78 lacks charisma, cachet, or any kind of mystique. It’s an awfully flat numeral that serves merely as a way-station on the road to the 80s.

To look back, 75 has a lot more punch to it, as does the staccato 77 with its echo of numbers once regarded as sacred. And the 80 or 85 that I hope are lying ahead can be relied upon to stir enthusiasm. But no one gets excited about 78.

Yet, every birthday comes as a gift, and I cherish each one. I identify with the dictum of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel who said, “Just to live is a blessing.” It surprises me to have lived this long, to have survived so many threats to continued life.

Despite its bland numerical character, I have special reason for welcoming 78. This birthday comes after a winter of unexpected physical affliction that sometimes made me wonder in what state my body would be on this date. Fortunately, though that body bears the scars of surgery, it functions remarkably well.

I often think about those who did not make it this far. It sobers me to think of the close friends and family members who did not reach 78.

On this birthday, I mourn the loss of some who were close to me. The two Bobs who were my friends for six decades, and dear extended-family members Joanne and Gregory: how can it be that they are gone while I am still here?

My relish for life must also be modified by the terrors of the world in which we live. Of course, all of my age peers survived the unprecedented horrors of the 20th century, with its mass murders and other insults to human dignity. Still, this new century has already proved productive of new levels of fear and human suffering.

The state of advanced adulthood, I find, bears a close resemblance to the other stages of life. It has its satisfactions and its burdens. The main difference, I discover, is a change in the balance physical burdens and satisfactions. On the present scale, ailments have become weightier.

The other factor, of course, is one’s vision of the end. It seems much closer than it used to. I do not expect to rival the world’s record holder for longevity, the French lady who lived to 122. But, as they lengthen, I do hope to continue feeling grateful for the days of my life.

Richard Griffin