As the years roll by…
By Annmarie Miles
(From the January - March 2020 issue of VOX)
2020! Can you believe it? I don’t want to wish my life away but being in a new decade reminds me that just two years from now, I’ll be preparing for my own new zero. 50 is looming large on my horizon. Now I know what you’re thinking – two years, bags of time. You’re right of course. In fact, when I was growing up, if ever we discussed an event more than a fortnight away, my father would say, “Sure we could be dead by then.” Thanks, Daddykins, for that happy thought.
I shared about two friends of mine who are doting grandfathers, last time, and as I get older, I feel a level of grandparent grief. I spent years watching my friends and family become parents, and now they are becoming grandparents – the loss hits me again. Day to day I’m happy and God has given me great contentment over the years but, every so often, the things He hasn’t given me are sharper in focus.
“I believe this until I kneel down and try to get back up again.”
As the saying goes, age is just a number, and for many, simply a state of mind. I believe this until I kneel down and try to get back up again. I’d like my mind to give me the dexterity of a 20 year old. Sadly, as I clamber to my feet, ouching and oooching, it doesn’t happen.
I spent time with a dear old friend recently. She is 85. She used to preach, teach and counsel regularly. In her heart she’d love to continue but her body won’t let her. She has had two strokes and a serious infection in the last couple of years. She is currently having treatment for skin cancer and macular degeneration in both eyes. And yet when she prays, the room lights up. When she listens to me pour my heart out, and responds to my words, she lifts my spirits. I meet with her and I think, YES LORD! Let the years come. Let the years bring with them maturity and understanding and grace and contentment and wisdom and a prayerful heart. She makes my latter years something to look forward to.
If that’s the benefit of old age, then bring on the zeros. At the rate years are passing, I’ll be 50 in no time. It feels like the new millennium was about five years ago. I think I still have the bunting. Not sure I’ll get a chance to use it again. I wonder, now that we’re in the 20s again, if the Charleston might make a comeback? It looks like fun. What a shame I haven’t got the knees for it.
Annmarie Miles is originally from Tallaght and now lives in her husband Richard’s homeland, Wales. As well as VOX articles, she writes short stories, and is working on a book about her journey with food, weight gain, weight loss and God. Visit her blog at www.auntyamo.com. On Twitter she is @amowriting.
