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Tag: Middle age

  • Middle Age Is The Richest Time

    When my husband said, “Middle age is the richest time,” I thought, “No way.” Too often, middle age feels like loss—of youth, of a sense of possibility, of elders I love.

    No denying, those really are jowls, and since I’m not inclined to have plastic surgery, they’re here to stay. Lovely.

    The big 6-0 isn’t that far off and I meant to have accomplished more—published more for sure.

    My 92-year-old Mom is slipping a lot faster. Her short-term memory has gone on strike, so we have the same conversations again and again. “Are you coming for the baby shower? No Mom, I can’t.  I’ll be in Arizona that weekend,” and the next day, “Are you coming to the baby shower? No, Mom . . . ” At 90, she managed her household and finances. Now her kids take care of that. To be expected, but still. I miss her smart competent self.

    As Dad, who died three years ago would say, “Aging isn’t for the faint of heart.” No kidding.

    So I had to know why my husband, who isn’t prone to positive affirmations or yippee-skippiness of any sort, would say middle age is the richest time.

    Screen Shot 2014-01-22 at 9.39.44 PM“Because at middle age, you can see forward and you can see back. We can vividly recall the experiences our kids are having and we can see how it we’ll be in 30 years.” Hmmm, maybe.

    As each of our sons approached their senior year in college, leaving college for the so-called “real world” looked scary to them. My 22-year-old self was panicky, “Whoa, I gotta get serious. I gotta get a plan. But I don’t have a clue.”

    When each son moved to his first apartment, I recalled how much fun it was to make a place my own.  Like mine, their places were furnished with a combination of hand-me-downs and the discount store shower curtain and towels they chose for themselves.

    When they talk about their girlfriends, I remember the low hum of excitement I felt when I was going out with someone new. I know what a milestone it is to realize that even though I had a fight with the guy I was dating, we worked through it and we were still together.

    So from the vantage point of middle age, I think, “Yes, it is a rich time. I’ve experienced so many things. I know so much more about life. My guys will figure it out too as they get older.”

    Then the glow of that wisdom and those fine memories fades a little. I think of Mom again and dread her loss and the loss of my own capabilities as I age. I tell my husband, “I look at Mom and I’m afraid I’ll be just like her. I forget stuff now!” He wisely says, “Yeah, but your 90’s are a lo o n n ng way off. Don’t waste today worrying about what may or may not happen tomorrow.”

    So I pull back from the brink. This man, this life. I am rich.

    How do you view middle age? If you’re not there yet, what do you expect?  If you’re already middle-aged, what’s it look like?

  • Paying It Forward . . . And Back

    Blue weavingThis past October, my 92-year-old mother and my Aunt Corinne, her 88-year-old sister, both needed to be moved. Mom was moving from the house in Ohio where she’d lived for more than 30 years to a seniors’ apartment. After breaking several vertebrae, Aunt Corinne has been in a rehab center for months. It’s unlikely she’ll be able to return to her costly assisted living apartment, so her belongings had to be packed up and put in storage.

    Each move involved some emotional upheaval. And there was the usual packing process—coordinating with the movers, wrapping precious items in bubble wrap, and figuring out what to do with quasi-useful stuff (Is this worth keeping? Will she ever use this again?).

    Since both moves had to happen within a week of each other, my siblings and I divided up the work. I organized Mom’s move from her house while my sister and brothers emptied out Aunt Corinne’s apartment.

    We’re hardly unique. Many middle-aged people are called on to help elders, often while still raising children. We feel the pull of threads woven when we were still children—unaware of how we mattered to our family.

    When my siblings and I were kids, Aunt Corinne and Uncle Bob were fun to visit. He owned a vending machine business, and they always gave my sister, two brothers and me candy, pop, and snacks from the supplies stored in the basement. Although they didn’t have children, they knew what kids liked, and they always remembered our birthdays with nice gifts. Thank goodness they had a poodle to play with, because we quickly grew bored and squirmy when the grownups talked in the living room. Aunt Corinne had a beautiful flower garden but never fussed if the ball or the dog got into it. So when poor health got the best of Aunt Corinne, we stepped in to help.

    Similarly, my husband, his sisters, and brother began helping their uncle manage his affairs this year. He is fiercely independent, never married, generous to a fault, and blind since he was 40. He finally agreed to move into a nursing home after his last fall and hospital stay. At 92, he has Parkinson’s, cancer and a failing memory—too many issues for him to continue going it alone. When my husband was a teen, his uncle gave him a job in the cafeteria he managed. Since they have that history, he was better able to accept my husband’s suggestion that living alone was no longer a good idea.

    From the vantage point of middle age, I can now see how we weave each generation into the sturdy cloth we call family.

    A nephew on my husband’s side of the family recently got married. He’s a chef, so preparing wonderful food for the wedding was his gift to the guests. Unfortunately, at the last minute, some of the people he had counted on to help weren’t able to come. So his parents, grandmother, my husband and I, along with a handful of others, helped him and his fiancée pull together the many details of the wedding. We cooked, washed up, ran errands, and made decorations. The main entrée was a whole pig that needed to roast all night and most of the day. Our sons agreed to monitor the roasting pig during the middle of the night. That way, their cousin was able to grab a few hours of sleep the night before he got married. His parents rested easier, too.

    Through their willingness to help, our sons deepened their relationships with their aunt, uncle, cousin and his bride. John and I reinforced our ties with our nephew and new niece.

    But more than that, our help affirmed how families pay it forward . . . and back. Giving and receiving are the warp and weft that create the enduring fabric of family.