How old would you be if you
didn’t know how old you were? – Satchel Paige
Mr. Clark turned 59 this week - now that sounds like a
daunting age – almost 60. The age old (and never cliché when you’re the one
asking it) question is, “Where did all the time go?”
One minute you’re graduating from college and the next
you’re eligible to join AARP. In between there is a whirlwind of child rearing,
family and work experiences, good times, hard times, sad times and so many
wonderful memories. And, while 59 may sound “old” to some and “young” to
others, part of what all those quickly passing years teaches you is that each
and every age you reach is a blessing.
If you had asked me what a scary sounding age was at 24, I
would’ve said 30. At 30, the answer was 35 and when that pushing 40 thing
started to happen, I shut down and took a few years off from counting how old I
was. Around 42, when I started hearing that I “looked good for my age,” I got
okay with being “old” again and I cruised on through to 49 relatively
age-trauma free. In fact, when I took my still mobile and quite feisty
90-year-old grandmother to another grandchild’s wedding in Mexico when I was
45, I realized with some happiness that my life might actually only be half
over.
Somewhere in my 49th year it hit me that I was
about to have use the number 50 to describe my age and for a while the thought
of that made me unable to remember what year I was born. It wasn’t Alzheimer’s
or early onset dementia – it was conscious denial. If I couldn’t tell you what
year I was born in, you couldn’t do the math.
My most recent birthday made me 56 which sounds old but feels
just fine. With the exception of a few minor aches and pains, I still feel
pretty much the way I always have. I don’t feel like I’m nearer to 60 than 50 except
sometimes, when the sight of that lady in the mirror catches me by surprise
and, somehow, based on how good I feel, she should look younger than that.
Good genes are a key component to aging well; Mr. Clark and
I are both blessed with those. His family stays healthy way on up in years and
my family, well, the grandmother I traveled to Mexico with just celebrated her
100th birthday and is still going strong. My other grandmother had a
sister who just passed at the age of 106. Imagine that!
Copious amounts of eye cream are another thing I believe in
when it comes to aging gracefully. I remember hearing a woman I worked with
when I was 22 or so talking about how she managed to look so young at the ripe
old age of 38, which at the time sounded really old to me. It was exercise and
eye cream…Well, I thought, if it worked so well for her, then taking those two
precautions surely wouldn’t hurt me and so far, they have served me well.
Humidity also helps. Even though I’ve never gotten used to
the climate here in the South, friends my age back in my native Colorado have
more wrinkles and lack the “glow” I have; maybe it’s all that sweating I
do...
Mr. Clark is like me – he doesn’t really look or act his
age. In my mind a 59-year-old man is sort of old and stodgy and grumpy and gray
– weight of the world on his shoulders, not much fun to be around. Not Mr.
Clark, he has the gift of a perennial child’s temperament in that he has a
light heart and a cheerful air about him. He’s not a worrier; he doesn’t know
how to hold a grudge; and he rarely gets angry. He sings a lot; he likes his
work and he has hobbies he enjoys. Those things, I’m sure, have contributed his
youthfulness; the only way you might begin to guess Mr. Clark’s age is his salt
& pepper hair, now mostly salt, not much pepper.
For his birthday, our daughter gave Mr. Clark a card that
said, “Men are like wine – some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with
age.” Pope John XXIII said that. I don’t know how old he was when he said that,
but I bet he was no spring chicken. I do know that if Mr. Clark was a wine,
he’d continue to improve with age because as a man, he certainly has done that.
Robert Browning said, “Grow old along with me! The best is
yet to be…” and for years I thought that was really cheesy and unrealistic. Not
now though; these days I have it posted on the fridge and the thought makes me
happy every time I look at it.
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