A Lament at Sixty

My birthday coming up this week marks one of those life milestones. I will in fact turn 60. I have in front of me a chart showing Levinson's developmental eras and transitions of adulthood that tells me that I will be entering the transition to Late Adulthood. This is all enough to make me wish I were younger like the singer (Billy Ray Cyrus, I think) who sings "I want my mullet back" or the people in the Diet Pepsi commercials who decide that of all the things from their younger days they would prefer to have the Diet Pepsi.

The thing that strikes me the most is the reminders of mortality that are regularly presented. A comedian once said that at this age if you do not wake up with some kind of ache or pain you should consider the possibility that you have in fact died during the night. The aches and pains are a reminder that I am no longer young. The reality of death is another thing. Ten years ago a girl playing on the basketball team that I coached lost her mother suddenly. Fr. Mick asked if I would speak at the funeral and offer support to the girl and her family. Sadly I declined. At that time the thought of death caused me quite a bit of panic. Since then, because of deaths in my family, I have become more accustomed to death and funerals. In the last six years there have been five funerals in my immediate family beginning with a younger brother. 2006 was a horrible year with three funerals. I recall my older sister's remark sometime during this period that the funerals could not be why they called this "the golden years." What this does is hit you with the reality that you will not live forever and it takes a while to come to terms with that. My older brother, who died before he was 65 last year, often said that he was not afraid to die. I would respond that it would be a shame to die before you had to. So, there seems to be stuff to complain about and little to celebrate on a 60th birthday.

I know, of course, that there are also lots of opportunities for me at this age. Most obviously I am retired and am no longer tied to the job, even though teaching was a source of great fulfillment for me. I have a chance, and the time, to think and pray more seriously about my relationship to God. I have a chance to take more time to treasure the relationships with my surviving siblings even though I live quite a ways apart from most of them. I am grateful for the security and health that I do have. I know that both of my parents lived past their 85th birthday and so, if I look after my health, I can probably look forward to more good years. But I still don't think that I will celebrate my birthday later in the week.

Mothers

Last Sunday was Mothers's day. Some one on TV quoted a TV personality as saying roughly now that his Mother was gone he remembered the good qualities she had and he missed her and wanted to see those good qualities passed on to his children. What a nice and fairly profound observation from an unexpected place!

As we pass Mother's day we come to the first anniversary of my mother's death. It has been difficult for members of my family to remember the good qualities of my mother. She died of a type of dementia (not Alzheimer's) that over a fairly long period of time robbed her, first of her short-term memory, and finally of virtually everything. The one thing I will remember from her long illness was her habit (even after she had lost the power of speech in an ordinary conversation) of telling her visitors and care givers: "I love you." That impressed me and it certainly impressed those who cared for her.

One of the things that Mom did early in her illness to try and cope with the short-term memory loss was to keep a diary. There were many disputes that were settled by "looking in the book" where she kept track of what had happened each day. I mention this because some time after my parents had moved from the farm I had the opportunity to look at her accounts of some of her days. I was struck as read these (I hope we still have them in the family somewhere) of how central her family was to her. Of course we all knew that. One of the memories we all share is of how Mom would work to make holidays like Christmas special for us. She spent Advent cleaning and cooking (so much so that sometimes on Christmas day she was exhausted). She did her best with the limited amount of money that her and Dad had to make sure that all of us (there was eight of us) were well fed and clothed. We were in fact poor but only Mom and Dad new it at the time. She loved to sing. Later in her illness after she had mostly lost the power of ordinary speech she would still try to sing along to familiar songs. I have a video made at Christmas over 25 years ago. I can see her in the video and hear her voice and see her when she was (I think) the happiest, in the middle of her family. So, belated happy Mother's day Mom. I miss you a lot.

Getting Older

I've written already about the fact that I am retired from teaching high school. Retirement has many advantages but there are some drawbacks. Some drawbacks are even serious but I present here my favorite observations on aging from a little book called, Age Happens, compiled by Bruce Lansky.

1. Middle age is that time when you always think that in a week or two you will feel as good as ever. -Don Marquis
2. Today isn't the first day of the rest of your life. It's Friday. -Bruce Lansky and K.L. Jones
3. Despite the high cost of living, it's still quite popular. -Laurence J. Peter
4. Middle age is when a woman gets up on a bus to offer her seat to you. Old age is when the woman who gets up to offer her seat is pregnant. -Bruce Lansky
5. If you look like your passport photo, you're probably too sick to travel. -Will Kommen
6. I much prefer being over the hill to being under it. -Bruce Lansky
7. The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not. -Mark Twain
8. After a certain age, if you don't wake up aching in every joint, you probably are dead. -Tommy Mein
9. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is breathe on a mirror and hope that it fogs. -Earl Wynn
10. You know you're getting old when you stop buying green bananas. -Lewis Grizzard