Aging

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.
-- Madeleine L'Engle

OK.  Now it's not just my son that tells me I'm old.  When I told the kids in my youth group the other night my age, they didn't say it with words, but their faces said it all,  "My gosh, she's ancient!"  One of them said, "I would never have guessed that you were....." are you ready..."THAT old!"  I'm fifty- three years old.  Alright, soon to be fifty-four.  I remember being their ages and thinking that fifty-anything was almost dead.  Yes, my mind is still functioning fairly normally, even at my advanced age!

What I didn't know then, was how much smarter I would be when I got to be "THAT old!"  I've learned so many valuable lessons, such as:

• The time to begin most things is ten years ago.  The author of this quote is anonymous but I thank him or her because this is so true.  Why do we wait?  We always think there will be a better time:  when the kids are grown, when the house is paid off, when ...whatever.  At this point in my life I've seen too many people who put off their dreams and desires until too late and they never even got to start working on them.  The dream was placed in your heart for a reason, so just start.  Don't wait for any reason.  Just begin...NOW!
• The older you get, the more you tell it like it used to be. Another author unknown.  Why is it that we tend to remember things differently than they felt at the time?  Could it be that with a little hindsight, with a little maturity and experience, we come to understand that what we thought was so very difficult at the time, was really a great lesson in disguise?  Even in the absolute worst of experiences, there is always some little glimmer of light.  With age, we see those little lights and value them because we know they are so few and far between.
• There's always a lot to be thankful for if you take time to look for it. For example, I am sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt.-- Author Unknown  In this age of Botox and face lifts and tummy tucks and all the other tucks, I'm kind of proud of my wrinkles.  I don't have many, just a few crow's feet so far.  And I kind of like those.  I think they're the evidence that I smile and laugh a lot.  That's a good thing.  I've earned these wrinkles and I think they reflect the good life I've had.  A lot of people would tell you that my life has been hard and I've certainly had my share of ups and downs, but I choose to see it all as good life lessons and instead of frown lines, I've got crow's feet from my squinty smile (that's what a photographer told me I had one time).  YEA!!!  I've got crow's feet from my squinty smile!
• Time wounds all heels. -- Dorothy Parker  Thank you, Dorothy!  You are right!  I used to worry so much about how unfair life was.  It seemed that people who worked so hard for things always ended up with the short stick, but what I've come to understand now that I'm "old" is that everything evens out in the end.  I don't have to worry about those folks who take the short cuts, or those that walk on others to get where they want.  Call it karma, call it fate, call it whatever you want, but in the end, everyone will get what they deserve, good or bad.
• You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred. -- Woody Allen  Now, don't get me wrong.  I eat healthy foods, I take long walks, I try to live a healthy, balanced life, but I also remember that this is the only life I'm going to have so there has to be some enjoyment too.  If I feel like eating cookie dough, I do!  If I feel like skipping my walk today or even a couple of days, I do!  I just don't make it a regular habit to do all the unhealthy things, especially at one time. 
• You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there.-- George Burns  This one made me laugh out loud, because I do this!  Now, don't deny it!  All you people my age and older, you know that you do it too!  You bend down to put your shoe on and you see some lint on the floor, or you find something you lost, or.....   You know you do this!
• At twenty we worry about what others think of us; at forty we don't care about what others think of us; at sixty we discover they haven't been thinking about us at all.  Author Unknown  You know, it really is true, if all our friends were jumping off a bridge, we would have jumped too.  Our peers were that important to us.  We spent all our time worrying about what they all thought.  Then we reached the ripe old age of forty, or thereabouts, and we just decided that we didn't care anymore.  Let them think what they want!  It's only when we reach this age that we realize just how self-centered we've been.  While we hope that we have been, and continue to be, important to a few people in our lives and that they think of us once in a while, we now understand that we're just not that important to most people.  And that's OK.
• Middle age is when you choose cereal for the fiber, not the toy.-- Author Unknown  I don't know, I still like the toy, myself!  I get both!
• Do not resent growing old. Many are denied the privilege.--Author Unknown  Too many of my friends never made it to this age.  I try to remember that when  life seems so hard. It really is a choice to find the good in each and every day.  It's there.  Sometimes it's kind of hard to find, but it's there.  Keep looking!
• Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.-- Soren Kierkegaard  I've come to understand that we're not supposed to understand all of this until we reach this point in our lives.  Now we've lived enough, we've experienced enough, to understand.  There is still time left to reap the benefit of the lessons and know that...
  Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
  -- Eleanor Roosevelt
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   

I Have a Story to Tell You

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Doris.  Doris was born on a farm in Kansas where she lived with her mother, her father, her brother and her sister.  It was a happy time for her.  All that she ever wanted or needed was right there on that farm.  When she was old enough, she started school with her siblings.  They walked to and from the school every day, except when they were needed to help with chores on the farm. 

Doris loved school.  She loved the books, she loved to learn, she loved the other children, she loved the blackboard and the chalk, but mostly she loved the teacher.  She looked forward each day to learning the lessons the teacher presented to the class.  She loved to watch as the teacher related to each and every student in her own, unique way. She decided early in her life that she wanted to be like that teacher.  She wanted to teach others, just like that teacher did.

One day, Doris fell in love and when they both had completed their schooling, they got married.  Doris didn't move far from her childhood home.  Actually, she and her husband bought a farm a mile down the road from her parent's.  While her husband farmed, Doris became a teacher.  At the age of 26, the Great Depression hit.  It was very hard for Doris to watch her family suffer greatly during this time.  Many, many years later she still talked about the agony of their struggle to just survive and not to lose everything they had worked their entire lives for.  She learned many important lessons during this time.

Doris loved the farm.  She loved the cattle, she loved the baby calves, and she loved the cats.  She always had a LOT of cats and she fed them all.  She knew each one so she recognized a new one immediately and made sure it was cared for and tended to.

They all survived the depression and life went on.  Then one day when Doris was in her middle forties, she received devastating news.  Her husband, whom she loved more than her own life, had terminal cancer.  Doris took care of him, out there on her farm, until his last day on this earth. 

Doris never remarried.  She had married this man for ever and ever and she remained true to him for the rest of her life.  She continued to teach until she retired and settled in on her beloved farm with her animals, her family (brother, sister, and their families), and her friends.  Doris never had children of her own, but she had hundreds and hundreds of children who never forgot her.

I met Doris when she was eighty two years old.  I married her niece's son.  We hit it off immediately, both of us being teachers and loving children.  We shared a love of learning and books.  I was amazed at the array of reading literature that was always stacked beside her chair in the living room.  Smithsonian Magazine, Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, National Geographic to name a few.  She didn't just read through them.  She studied them.  She would point out articles and she would envelope you in an in-depth conversation about what she'd read.  She loved to debate the latest topic and 'pick your brain.'

During those first years of our friendship, Doris was convinced she would die shortly.  After all, her parents had died at the age of 83.  Her brother and sister also died at 83.  She then, of course, would die at 83.  I was so pleased when we finally celebrated that 83rd birthday and then the 84th.  We could finally quit talking about her last days.  Not that she was fearful of it.  She was absolutely OK with the idea of following the same timeline as her family members.  It was the rest of us who weren't prepared for it.

Doris' nephew and I divorced after fifteen years of marriage.  Even then, she made it very clear to me that she was still my aunt too.  We talked frequently and when I was in the area, I always stopped at the farm for a visit.  I loved sleeping out there where it was so quiet.  In the summertime, we'd sleep with the doors all open and you could hear the sounds of the farm at night.  You could smell the flowers that were always planted along the front of her house and sat on her porch. 

When she was 98 years old, she still had her cattle and about forty cats.  She was still on her farm.  She still got up in the night to check on the baby calves and make sure the mamas were all right.  Neighbors and friends would come to help her and check on her.  The mailman brought her mail to the house so she didn't have to walk down the lane to get it in the bad weather.  ("He didn't need to do that.  I can still walk!").  And then one morning she couldn't get out of bed.  She'd had a stroke that affected her left side and her ability to speak clearly.  She moved from her farm to the nursing home.  For the first time in her entire life, she lived away from the farm.

Doris lived in a nursing home where she had lots of friends from over the years of her life.  Former students, friends and family visited her regularly and she would always convince them to play a few games of Uno.  Let me tell you, she was vicious with her Uno games.  There was no playing nice with Doris in the game!  Everyone understood, it was every man (or woman) for themselves!

My son likes to tell me that I'm more than half way through my life.  (Nineteen year olds love to point these things out).  I remind him that I've had a great example and I plan on being like Doris with lots and lots more years ahead to love, to live, and to appreciate this good life!

Thanks so much, Aunt Midge!  I'm going to miss you, but I know you're home now!  I love you!