Threescore and ten ... and then?

“The days of our life are threescore and ten, and even by reason of strength fourscore years; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.”

Psalm 90:10

Here I am at threescore and ten, or as we would phrase it today, the Big Seven-Oh. I can’t say that age has snuck up on me. I’ve seen it coming for years, decades even. I know my face and body have aged. I see it and feel it every day. My joints and muscles hurt most days, and some foods tend to tie my digestive tract in knots. My faltering memory embarrasses me nearly every day. I often can’t recall someone’s name, although I know it perfectly well; it just won’t show itself. It’s as if my brain were an overstuffed Rolodex, and some days the right card just won’t pop up.

Nevertheless, I’m grateful to be here at this biblical age. My threescore years and ten have been good, better than I deserve. I have experienced disappointments and tragedies, along with joys and pleasant surprises. Friends from long ago have preceded me to the grave years before they reached this epoch. I have stood by the graves of parents, siblings, cousins, and friends. The Psalm’s threescore and ten years is not a promise; not everyone will make it. Nor is it a delimiter. Some will live past 70. My parents made it to their late 80s, but their last decade was sad and painful.

Genes from my parents might get me through a few more years, but if those extra years involve the kind of dementia and residence in a nursing home that they experienced, I’d rather leave the stage now.

Yes, this span “is but toil and trouble,” and the years “are soon gone,” after which “we fly away.” We will soon get a reminder of our mortality on Ash Wednesday: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Maybe not imminently, but certainly.

I’m hopeful for another decade or two past this milestone if my body and brain will continue working. I don’t want to end the romance that began nearly 50 years ago; we have other things to see, places to go, conversations to have and hugs to share. I want to see my grandchildren, no longer babies, grow into adulthood. I have lived to see “your children’s children” as the biblical blessing promised (Psalm 128:6). Now I want to see them grown and living their own successful lives.

For the most part, I have found that life keeps getting better. I rather dreaded my forties, which began with an “over the hill” party, because I was no longer a young man. My fifties were better. The children were mostly on their own, and our “empty nest” wasn’t at all bad once I got used to the quiet in the house. My sixties were difficult as loved ones died, and my career took an abrupt turn, but our marriage grew stronger as we faced that decade together.

Now I bid farewell to my sixties, no longer joking that “it’s the sixties all over again!” Most of all on this threescore and ten, I am grateful for a life different from the one I imagined at the one-score mark. This life, however long it may last, has been as wonderful as George Bailey’s life in Bedford Falls.

This post originally appeared in The Wilson Times March 2, 2019.

Memories were served at 80th birthday celebration

Nearly 10 years ago, my wife's family gathered for a major milestone, her dad's 80th birthday. The unspoken message was that this might be the last good opportunity to celebrate the life of the family patriarch. It wasn't. Although he had experienced some fairly serious health problems before the year 2000, he made it almost 10 more years, and the milestones included some graduations and weddings and the births of seven great-grandchildren. It was not until January a year ago that we had to face his mortality head-on. Surgery 14 months ago revealed the cause of some pain he'd had — an aggressive tumor that had already spread beyond his gall bladder into his pancreas and liver. The prognosis was dire, but he accepted it with stoic good humor, with "equanimity," I wrote at the time. A good oncologist and some harsh treatments gave him nearly a full year of relatively good health before the tumor counter-attacked and ultimately prevailed. He died at his home March 24.

But back to that 80th birthday party. The gathering included his wife, brother and sister-in-law, children, sons- and daughter-in-law, stepchildren and grandchildren. Someone suggested that we give him our memories in the form of a scrapbook. A multitude of photographs were made into collages of his life. Several of us, the more verbal and less visual, I suppose, wrote their memories of him.

Here are two of those memories, from my wife, his eldest daughter, and from me, the guy who stole her away from her loving daddy.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. . .” Galations 5:22-23

Dear Daddy,

When I think of your influence on my life, I think of the fruit of the Spirit. The love you have given, the joy we see in your face when we’re gathered together, the patience with which you disciplined us, the kindness and goodness that are evident in all that you do, the gentleness with which you held and cared for your grandchildren, the self-control necessary to be a responsible husband, father, and son.
There is no way that I can adequately express how much your example. . .just the way you have lived your life. . .has meant to me.
There are some memories that remain vivid to me.
* You taking me downtown to the shoe store with the little carousel and buying me a pair of black patent leather shoes.
* Going to Howard Johnson’s for lunch and ordering banana splits for dessert. We had to wait while they went to the store and bought the bananas.
* When you came to Beulah’s to tell us that Mary had been born and that she was being named after your grandmother.
* Listening as you read to us from the big green storybook, “My Bookhouse.”
* Being comforted by you when I thought a little wind must mean a hurricane. That was in first grade after Mrs. Cockrell had told us all about Hurricane Hazel.
* When you sang the gasoline song in the car.
* Riding out to Long Island or just going for drives with all the windows down in the red Buick.
* Driving out to the lake after you got off work for a pre-dinner swim and looking at that spot where the house is and saying “Won’t it be great when all we have to do is walk up the hill?”
* Trying to learn a little about golf in the “field” behind the house on Broad Street.
* Sitting in Granny’s living room when Mama was having a rough time and you telling us how she was sick and how much you loved her.
* Having you hand me the keys to the other car after I wrecked the little blue Ford, so that Ann & I could still go get ice cream.
* Finding you waiting for me at the table when I came home from a miserable date with Timmy Moore, wanting to say or do something that would make me less miserable.
* Walking down the aisle with you at my wedding.
* Hearing you say “She’s just beautiful!” when I opened my eyes after Tracy was born.
* How you cared for Granny all of your life and especially after she went to the nursing home.

There are so many more memories, all of them warm and wonderful. I’m so thankful for all of them, and for you.

Happy Birthday!

• • •

In the photo from our wedding, which is sitting on our piano, you have taken off your dark-rim glasses and are wiping tears from your eyes. I can’t say as I blame you.

I had practically stolen away your first-born daughter, your Ginnybird, and I did not have what you would call good “prospects” at the moment. I had no job and few real hopes of getting one on a long-term basis. Although I was madly in love with your daughter (and still am), I had no realistic plan for feeding, clothing and sheltering her. Nevertheless, except for that one brief moment after the ceremony, when sentiment or nostalgia or anxiety overcame your composure, you were unfailingly supportive and cheerful from the moment you welcomed me into the family. And that has been your demeanor throughout these nearly 30 years that have passed so quickly. Your advice, support, assistance and cheerful presence have been constants in our lives.

I have seen that same positive good will exhibited toward the dates of your other children and grandchildren and could only wonder, sometimes, if I had been as unappealing as some of them.

When it was my turn to make a toast at the rehearsal dinner before my eldest daughter’s marriage, I said I wasn’t sure about how to be a father-in-law, but I did have the advantage of a great role model to show me the way. I could not have been more sincere. You have been supportive when we needed a boost, wise when we needed advice, understanding when we stumbled, patient when our desires or youthfulness took over our reasoning, sympathetic when we met troubles, happy at our joys, concerned for our worries and unfailingly positive about our lives and our future.

After 80 years, you greet life with the cheerfulness of a carefree child, although I know your years have been far from carefree. You have never let the tragedies of your life — losing your father, wife, mother and sister — wear you down or embitter you. After such terrible tests, the ordinary adversities of life seem to roll off your back, and I can only admire your resilience, steadfastness and faith. I only wish I could have learned better the lessons your life has to teach and that I could better emulate your great example.

With the greatest respect and admiration, I wish you a happy 80th birthday, and many more to come.

Another snowy birthday after so many years

I'm looking out  the window watching the snow fall softly and gently in Wilson and thinking back to another March 2 when it snowed like this. It was 49 years ago, and I remember it well because it was my 11th birthday.

Now, unless you're a victim of The New Math or simply have forgotten how to do simple addition, you can figure out that today is my 60th birthday. To the best of my memory, it has not snowed on March 2 at any place I have been living at the time since 1960.

That day 49 years ago stands out because I was looking forward to a great day. My parents would not allow their five children to have birthday parties every year, but, if we were moderately civilized in the weeks beforehand, we might be allowed to invite a friend or two or three over for the afternoon, and our friends would get to eat the homemade cake my mother would always bake. But birthday presents were discouraged.

In 1960, I had invited two or three friends to come over after school. When it began snowing, we saw no reason to change plans. My friends boarded the school bus with me when school let out early. Oh boy! We'd have even longer to play, and the snow would be great fun. It never occurred to any of us, so far as I can remember, that there was a connection between getting out of school early and treacherous road conditions. My friends lived a mile or two away and didn't ride my school bus. When the bus reached my driveway, one of the parents of my guests was waiting, more than mildly upset at having to brave slippery roads to retrieve a child who couldn't quite understand what was the big deal. I spent my birthday afternoon playing with my siblings in the several inches of snow that fell.

That March 2 was also significant because it marked the first of the Wednesdays that month that it snowed. All month long, the snow would begin to melt, then it would snow again. My memory is that it snowed every Wednesday in March, but because there were five Wednesdays that March, perhaps it snowed only the first four. The first snow, on my birthday, was deep, close to a foot, as I recall. Then it sleeted on top of the snow, and I was able to walk on top of the frozen snow. Even when school resumed, only to be canceled the next Wednesday, icy spots remained for sledding and skidding.

Chances are, this is not the beginning of a repeat of the snowy March of 1960, but I have reached the age when I'm allowed to say, a little too loudly, "You whippersnappers don't know nothin' about snow. Why, I remember the Blizzard of 1960, when it snowed every Wednesday in March, and a fella couldn't even have a decent birthday celebration."