At age 20 the thought of getting old never occurred to me. I was in college and my whole life was ahead of me.

Time was on my side.

But time is not on the side of my old friend, Leroy, as he likes to be called, who is turning 95 this Friday. I was raised to show respect for my elders by addressing them formally, but Leroy doesn’t concern himself with the politics of age.

He enjoys friends of all ages and gives of himself freely to all who pass by his door.

After nearly 40 years working on the line at a local manufacturing plant, Leroy retired with the goal of living long enough to spend as many years in retirement as he did at work.

He has nearly made his goal.

With the coal mines of his youth long behind him, Leroy lived simply and honestly in the same home for 71 years.

He gardened all summer and brought me homegrown tomatoes and zucchini nearly every single day.

He shoveled my sidewalks when he thought my working hours were too late.

He raked my leaves when I gave up fighting the wind.

And he made cookies and other special sweets for me at Christmas.

Leroy was a testimony to aging gracefully and with dignity.

That is, until last month, when Leroy’s family moved him to a rest home.

Surely all the pain and suffering of life can’t equal the disappointment of facing death surrounded by strangers — the delusional, the incontinent, the dying, the silent: “So many of them can’t even speak!” he tells me.

They said they were worried about him falling down and hurting himself.

They said they wanted him to be around other people.

They said they didn’t want him working so hard, doing his laundry, cooking.

Now instead of caring for himself, Leroy’s final years or months will be measured by nurses and CNAs who do their 8-hour shifts and then go home.

He will be relegated to a chair near the window, and he will not garden or cook ever again.

What tangles my feelings, though, is that Leroy doesn’t seem angry.

I am angry.

I am outraged, furious, screaming mad. I cry when I think about him in that place.

But Leroy is calm, accepting this turn of events with a sad resignation that I fear means he is ready to die.

How unfair to have lived your whole life independently, to have worked hard, lived simply and prepared for the future, only to end up living with the sights and sounds and smells of death and decay.

When I was young, growing up in East Los Angeles, the “viejos y viejas” were like extra moms and dads to all of us kids in the neighborhood.

Everyone watched out for everyone, and each of us had our place in the community.

Sure, we challenged them —they were old and we were young — but we never called them by their first names.

And if the vieja living next door told you to be quiet, you quieted down.

And if the viejo across the street had a bag of groceries to carry into the house, you quickly volunteered to carry it in for him before another adult noticed your bad manners.

And misbehaving children were sent to their rooms.

It seems that we relegated our elderly parents and grandparents to the role of bothersome children, children we hide away from company, children we lock up in their rooms where they won’t get hurt and where they can’t get in the way.

Leroy’s house sits empty now. Surely there are home helpers who could have assisted him in his home, but the decision has already been made … by those who know what is best for him.

I admit it.

I haven’t prepared for the future — no retirement to speak of and social security surely will be bankrupt by the time I’m ready to collect — but I will not die quietly, even if my daughter does put me in a home.

I like to imagine myself sitting there near the window, like Leroy, but with a match in my pocket and a can of gasoline under my bed, muttering like some crazy old lady:

“Rage, rage, against the dying of the light … do not go gentle into that good night.”

Things may change between now and then. But then again, probably not.

Good night, dear Leroy.

Sweet dreams.

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Kata Alvidrez is a graduate student in English from Los Angeles, Calif.