It might seem that this is an obvious reference to the married couple who has spent a lifetime together.
Of course, to most this makes the most sense to highlight. I am part of one such couple. Each day growing in love but always haunted by the potential of the days dwindling. My intent is not to sound melancholy, although, in re-reading these words, that’s exactly what the intimation would indicate.
As a couple, we often speak of cherishing the days, we laugh about what the potential could indicate should the inevitable occur and we are left in that solo state navigating this world, our world, leaning heavily on the moments that were shared and holding on tight to those memories.
There is another important aspect of this inevitability to consider. As Baby Boomers, we often married young and within a few years we had our families. Now, in our 70th and 80th years of life, it’s our children that we are growing older with. It’s they who are witnessing our changes and our process of limitations creeping up month after month.
My parents were among the pioneers who were able to retire early and then packed up the homestead and headed out to the southern states where they lived out their lives.
We were immersed in the work years where vacation time was limited and the kids' vacations were dictated by that annual school calendar from September to June.
Visits with the grandparents, at first, were often coupled with trips to amusement parks. Then they dwindled to less and less time together as the kids grew older and sports or camp took up the majority of the free time even for the parents.
The point of all of this history is to demonstrate that the collective families were growing older…continuing to live their lives but ultimately not “together” per se.
Proximity to each other mattered but had sadly changed.
Then, this happened. Our folks not only grew older, the image that we had held in the recesses of our memory vaults of the parents we recalled, changed.
They aged. We were aging. All our appearances changed. Their health shifted. Our ability to spend that time together as we had before changed.
The timeline, as we knew it, as we grew older and they grew older, was not as it had been when our grandparents and great grandparents had lived so much nearer.
Witnessing aging seems to be much kinder as it is occurring. As our patience for slowing down would match the actions that we could actually witness day by day alongside our folks, it would be far easier to accept as the days dwindle for all.
So as we, my husband of 51 years and I grow older together, it is our desire to grow older and allow our kids to witness this process so as to ease the process for them as well. It’s probably the last honest gift we can give…acceptance of life as it unfolds.
Pat Larsen, lives, works and plays in Greene County and writes as a syndicated columnist for most local papers.
Her first book, Reflections…anything but an ordinary life is available on Amazon or KDP.
Pat’s always available to chat at 518-275-8686.
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