While I Am Still Here

This week, two names from my younger years suddenly appeared in the news for a reason I did not expect.

Dolly Parton died at 80.

Then came the news that Tim Curry had also died at 80.

And I found myself doing something very simple.

I did the math.

Eighty.

Only thirteen years older than I am.

Sheesh.

It wasn’t fear that I felt. It was something much harder to describe — an awareness of time.

Dolly Parton had been somewhere in the background of my life almost from the beginning. My parents listened to her music. They belonged to that generation of entertainers that included Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis and so many others whose voices, movies and television appearances simply became part of the landscape of childhood.

Years later, I even found myself in Tennessee for a teachers’ conference, travelling through the part of the world so closely associated with Dolly.

Tim Curry belonged to another part of my life.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Enough said.

For those of us who grew up during those years, certain performers become more than famous people. They become markers of time. We remember the music we listened to, the movies we watched, what we wore, where we went and, perhaps most importantly, who we were.

And then one day we realize that the people who seemed permanently woven into the background of our lives are growing old.

And so are we.

That realization doesn’t make me particularly sad.

If anything, it makes me grateful.

The Strange Speed of Time

When I was young, eighty sounded ancient.

Even sixty-seven sounded ancient.

Now I am approaching sixty-seven and wondering exactly when that happened.

The years did not announce themselves as they passed. They arrived quietly in ordinary mornings, workdays, raising children, family dinners, illnesses, celebrations, losses, prayers and all those seemingly insignificant moments that eventually become a life.

Perhaps that is one of the gifts of growing older.

We begin to understand the value of time precisely because we know it is not endless.

There have been moments throughout my life when I have been unusually aware of that fragility.

When my father was ill, I remember praying that God would take me instead. He didn’t.

My father died, and I remained.

There have been other moments surrounding people I loved when I felt strongly that something was wrong or that time might be short. Whether those moments are understood as intuition, premonition or something belonging to the mystery of faith, they have stayed with me.

They taught me something important:

Go.

Go see the person.

Say what needs to be said.

Pray the prayer.

Sit beside them.

Love them while you can.

And perhaps that is partly why I have never thought of growing older simply as something to fear.

I am still here.

For me, that means there is still life to live and still something God is asking of me.

Aging Gracefully — More or Less

Of course, my children apparently have their own ideas about what aging gracefully should look like.

Recently I considered buying a T-shirt from a brand I have worn before.

My son looked at it and informed me:

“Mom, you’re too old to wear that now.”

Excuse me?

Apparently there is an age at which one’s children become the fashion police.

I spent part of my younger life as something of a punker and fashionista. I’ve dyed my hair blond. I’ve worn the clothes I liked. I’ve changed styles more times than I can remember.

And somewhere underneath the woman approaching sixty-seven, that slightly rebellious young woman is apparently still alive and well.

Maybe aging gracefully doesn’t mean becoming quieter, beige, invisible or suddenly dressing according to somebody else’s idea of what an older woman should look like.

Maybe grace has very little to do with pretending we aren’t aging.

It means accepting the years without surrendering the person who has travelled through them.

I have wrinkles.

My hair has changed.

My body certainly reminds me that I am no longer twenty.

But I also have things at sixty-seven that I could never have possessed at twenty.

Memories.

Perspective.

Faith tested by life.

A marriage and family shaped over decades.

Children who are now old enough to tell me what I should and shouldn’t wear.

And the wonderful freedom to occasionally ignore them.

While I Am Still Here

The deaths of Dolly Parton and Tim Curry reminded me how quickly a lifetime passes. Both reached eighty. Suddenly thirteen years does not sound very long.

But thirteen years is not merely a number.

It is thousands of mornings.

Thirteen Christmases.

Thirteen springs.

Countless conversations and cups of coffee.

Time with the people we love.

And, God willing, opportunities to continue becoming whoever we are still meant to become.

I don’t know how many years God has given me.

None of us does.

What I do know is that I am here today.

I am still working.

Still writing.

Still creating.

Still praying.

Still learning.

Still loving my family.

Still occasionally driving my children crazy.

And apparently still rebellious enough to contemplate buying a T-shirt my son thinks I am too old to wear.

Perhaps that is what aging gracefully means to me.

Not clinging desperately to youth.

Not fearing the years ahead.

But receiving the day that is here.

Because after watching so many familiar faces from my childhood and youth gradually leave us, I understand something now that I could not have understood when I was twenty:

The days really do pass quickly.

So while I am here, I want to live them.

And if I happen to wear the supposedly inappropriate T-shirt while doing it?

Well…

My children will survive.