In a few weeks I will be 70 years old and this nagging reality has invaded my space! I have never had a strong reaction to milestone birthdays. When I look back on those decade changing birthdays, none of them bothered me. When I turned thirty I had young children and was full throttle into figuring out my wife and mother life. At forty my kids were nearing college age,
but I had foster children by then and parenting and public school reform filled
my days. By fifty everyone was off to
college but we had just finished a three-year custody battle for our son who
had come to us as a week old foster child.
Life looked very good and I was a very busy mother of a five year old. My fifties were a blur of activity. Not only was I busy with my son, but my
oldest daughter had her first of four children. Squeezing grandma time in and
navigating our teenage son's ups and downs gave me a very full life. At sixty my husband and I were facing a difficult time as parents and a serious test to our marriage. By my mid-sixties our son was in
school out of state and I began my first “empty nest” in forty years. Why didn’t that trigger some kind of reaction
about my age or stage of life then?
Several things come to mind. I was still restoring the big old neglected house we had moved into about ten years earlier; I was creating a little “hobby farm” with poultry and produce in my back yard and we had also managing to fill up the empty nest with family and friends in transition. My husband and I still share the house with our son and a friend (on their way as soon as they find an apartment in the area they want at a price they can afford!) There are still chickens, ducks, rabbits, cats and a noble French Mastiff to care for, garden beds and endless house repairs; so why do I feel gravity that I’ve never noticed before about my up-coming birthday?
The whole aging/end of life experience seems to be on my radar and in the air. I don’t know if it’s being written and talked about that much more, but it seems to be a hot topic everywhere I turn. In the news, TV talk shows, magazines and movies like “Nebraska” and “Last Vegas” are starting to have “older stars” and older themes. Some of it is funny, sweet or inspirational, but much of it chronicles the woes of the “golden” years. Not to mention the overwhelming amount of data about what to eat and how to live in good health for more years. And that, I think, brings me to the genesis of my sensitivity to turning seventy. Of course I have always been aware that I have a shelf life, a time when I will expire. I had several years when my children were little that I struggled with the whole “death thing.” I had a kind of free-floating anxiety rooted, I discovered, in the fact that everyone I loved, including my precious babies, would ultimately die. Becoming aware of the source of this anxiety and spending many years meditating and making peace with my total lack of control had pretty much calmed my discomfort about death.
I was able to handle the sudden deaths of my father and my brother, and help my mother through several years of decline and death from congestive heart failure. The family I grew up in is totally gone and only my Uncle Don is above me on the "ladder" in the extended family. It’s something I have been aware of for several years with no real impact on my life. Somehow this next birthday has re-awakened my mortality issues and reminds me that there are a finite number of years ahead for me. Of course this has been true since I was born, but even if I “live long and prosper,” the realization that I am in the end stage of my life has entered the picture.
So here is my plan - I always like to have a plan! It makes me feel like I have a say in things. Since time is growing exceedingly precious, I will write about this journey. Writing about something keeps it in my consciousness and always helps me figure things out. And, since I believe in heaven, and actually have had verification from my dad that he lives on (a subject for another day) I am on the stairway to heaven. My plan for that stairway is to create as much heaven as I can for others and myself as I move closer to the top.
Let the fun begin!
Several things come to mind. I was still restoring the big old neglected house we had moved into about ten years earlier; I was creating a little “hobby farm” with poultry and produce in my back yard and we had also managing to fill up the empty nest with family and friends in transition. My husband and I still share the house with our son and a friend (on their way as soon as they find an apartment in the area they want at a price they can afford!) There are still chickens, ducks, rabbits, cats and a noble French Mastiff to care for, garden beds and endless house repairs; so why do I feel gravity that I’ve never noticed before about my up-coming birthday?
The whole aging/end of life experience seems to be on my radar and in the air. I don’t know if it’s being written and talked about that much more, but it seems to be a hot topic everywhere I turn. In the news, TV talk shows, magazines and movies like “Nebraska” and “Last Vegas” are starting to have “older stars” and older themes. Some of it is funny, sweet or inspirational, but much of it chronicles the woes of the “golden” years. Not to mention the overwhelming amount of data about what to eat and how to live in good health for more years. And that, I think, brings me to the genesis of my sensitivity to turning seventy. Of course I have always been aware that I have a shelf life, a time when I will expire. I had several years when my children were little that I struggled with the whole “death thing.” I had a kind of free-floating anxiety rooted, I discovered, in the fact that everyone I loved, including my precious babies, would ultimately die. Becoming aware of the source of this anxiety and spending many years meditating and making peace with my total lack of control had pretty much calmed my discomfort about death.
I was able to handle the sudden deaths of my father and my brother, and help my mother through several years of decline and death from congestive heart failure. The family I grew up in is totally gone and only my Uncle Don is above me on the "ladder" in the extended family. It’s something I have been aware of for several years with no real impact on my life. Somehow this next birthday has re-awakened my mortality issues and reminds me that there are a finite number of years ahead for me. Of course this has been true since I was born, but even if I “live long and prosper,” the realization that I am in the end stage of my life has entered the picture.
So here is my plan - I always like to have a plan! It makes me feel like I have a say in things. Since time is growing exceedingly precious, I will write about this journey. Writing about something keeps it in my consciousness and always helps me figure things out. And, since I believe in heaven, and actually have had verification from my dad that he lives on (a subject for another day) I am on the stairway to heaven. My plan for that stairway is to create as much heaven as I can for others and myself as I move closer to the top.
Let the fun begin!
