Friday, September 17, 2010

Not So Old?

It has recently (finally!) occurred to me that at 57 I might be a bit on the older side when it comes to making major life changes.  Most of my friends are starting to talk about retirement, whereas I'm thinking that if I can just make it past that exegesis exam, then I might be ordained to something somewhere sometime.

My paternal grandmother always longed to travel the world, but was temporarily stymied by my grandfather's refusal to board either a plane or a boat.  She was a resourceful woman, however, and when I was nine and in fourth grade, she took me to Williamsburg VA for a week, inaugurating 25 years of adventure around the globe with grandchildren in tow. 

The next summer, when I was ten, we headed for Yellowstone and the Tetons. I very much wanted to take one of the park ranger-led trail rides, and she didn't want to send me off alone, so she bought a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt and clambered into a horse for the first time in her life.

You might have thought, given the fuss that folks made of her adventure, that she was at least 90 years old.  Last week I realized that she was the age I am now!

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In my efforts to sort through the massive files of papers in this house, I've just found a box of letters I removed from my grandmother's attic a few years ago.  If I have understood my family history correctly, in the space of about two years around 1960 my grandparents each lost a parent and my mother and brother were killed.  This particular box of letters documents that time in the form of condolence letters; those from the nearby Ursuline sisters and from my grandmother's college friends are particularly beautiful.

In one of the letters, one of her friends references a conversation she and my grandmother had had a year earlier.  My grandmother had apparently said, "Do you realize that we only have about 10 productive years of life left?" 

She would have been about 53 when she said that!

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My grandmother lived to be 100.  I don't think she would have chosen the last decade of her life, during which she became almost entirely deaf and blind, but she never lost the use of her considerable intelligence, and she was deeply engaged in our lives into her 90s.

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I suppose that for someone born shortly after 1900, when the average American life expectancy was fifty, the mid-60s did seem OLD.  I feel quite creaky sometimes ~ but not very old.




10 comments:

  1. My 60 year old husband informed me yesterday that he figures he has about 10 years to go. Really?

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  2. Love hearing the memories you have about your grandmother....she was an amazing woman, not only for "her" times, but for ours as well...although I am 53 right now I doubt I'll even have grandkids when I'm 57, maybe when I'm 60 something? Seems you were really blessed to have her in your life.

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  3. I, too, love hearing stories about your grandmother. She is who/how I want to be. With my own kids, with someone else's kids, with some (possible) grandchild someday.

    Thanks, Robin!

    And thanks for continuing to make major life changes - it's very encouraging.

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  4. I loved the story, too. We talked about when I might retire from teaching chemistry today at the department meeting and at dinner I wondered aloud what I might do next. One thing I'm sure of is that ordination isn't in my future - whether I could pass the exegesis exams or not. :)

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  5. Yep...folks around our age are talking about retirement. And I just have to laugh!

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  6. I, too, am 57. I've always thought of retirement age as way out in the future and it only recently occurred to me that "that age" could easily be less than 10 years away. I am not ready to retire, not at all!

    A surprising thing happened last winter. I went to my young(er) chiropractor with some new back pain, and he asked me what I had been doing. "Shoveling some snow," I replied, and he looked at me with this amused look and chided me with, "Why on earth were you doing that?" like I was so cute -- and foolish! --to think I could still be shoveling snow at my age. It was the weirdest feeling!

    Go for it -- whatever "it" might be! The best new pastor I know is over 60. She is amazing!

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  7. You and your grandmother are both inspiring to this 59-year-old seminarian!

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  8. I guess I am young then, though last night with 3 Daves, I was the old guy ;')

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  9. I am the same age you are now, and I have done everything out of sync with what is considered "normal"--got my BS when I was 34, my PhD when I was 41, and I was ordained at 52. I don't think we're ever too old for making changes. And hey, 60 is the new 40 anyway!

    Your grandmother sounds amazing, and what a great role model.

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  10. Your grandmother is just the kind I try to be. Very inspirational the way she keeps on going despite the loss, and tries to squeeze the most out of what she has. I think you are very much like her.

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